GIFT  OF 


THE   KINSLEY   SERIES 

Complete    in   Three  Volumes 

MAN'S  TOMORROW  $1.20  net 
DOES  PRAYER  AVAIL?  1.00  net 
WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  1.00  net 


The  arguments  and  illustrations 
in  the  three  volumes  making  up 
this  series  are  intimately  inter- 
woven, and  together  give  in  its 
entirety  the  author's  thought 
in  a  wide  and  supremely  im- 
portant field  of  inquiry.  Each 
volume  will,  however,  be  found 
complete  in  itself, — an  interest- 
ing and  instructive  work.  Full 
description  sent  upon  request. 


SHERMAN,  FRENCH  tf  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS  BOSTON 


WAS    CHRIST   DIVINE? 


BY 

WILLIAM   W.    KINSLEY 
\i 

Author  of  "  Man's  Tomorrow,"  "  Does  Prayer  Avail  ?  " 

"  Views  on  Vexed  Questions,"  "  Old  Faiths 

and  New  Facts,"  etc. 


BOSTON 
SHERMAN,  FRENCH  y  COMPANY 

1912 


COPYRIGHT,  1912 
SHERMAN,  FRENCH  &f  COMPANY 


PREFACE 

The  arguments  and  illustrations,  used  in  an- 
swering the  questions  of  "Man's  To-morrow"  and 
"Does  Prayer  Avail?"  in  the  first  two  volumes  of 
this  recent  series  already  issued  from  the  press, 
are  intimately  interwoven  with  those  employed  in 
this  the  third,  "Was  Christ  Divine?"  While, 
however,  the  three,  both  in  their  nature  and  mode 
of  treatment,  constitute  together  a  single  unified 
threefold  theme,  giving  the  author's  thought  in 
its  entirety  in  a  wide  and  supremely  important 
field  of  inquiry,  yet  each  will  be  found  complete  in 
itself. 

A  multitude  of  most  interesting  and  illuminat- 
ing facts,  facts  full  of  suggestion  and  inspiration, 
have  been  discovered  through  the  researches  of  the 
physical  sciences  and  of  the  science  of  psychology, 
bearing  directly  upon  this  the  third  most  per- 
plexing of  the  World's  problems,  the  true  nature 
of  the  personality  of  Christ. 

With  each  inflooding  of  new  light  there  arises 
a  new  necessity  for  a  reinvestigation  of  this  baf- 
fling mystery.  Can  our  passionate  questionings 
be  satisfied?  Can  the  secret  be  solved? 

In  place  of  the  half-blinding  reverential  awe 
with  which  the  enigma  of  Christ's  personality  has 
been  approached  thus  far  there  has  come  in  this 
critical  scientific  age  a  spirit  of  keen  scrutiny,  a 


PREFACE 

cool  determination  to  obtain,  if  possible,  some  so- 
lution that  will  stand  the  test  of  modern  thought. 

Is  there  any  possible  common  meeting  ground 
for  the  hitherto  supposed  irreconcilable  Trinita- 
rian and  Unitarian  schools  of  belief?  The  author 
would  like  to  have  his  readers  keep  this  query  in 
mind  as  they  acquaint  themselves  with  the  facts 
and  arguments  which  he  has  written  down  with 
candor  and  with  care. 

It  has  been  his  fixed  determination  in  institut- 
ing this  inquiry  to  champion  none  but  his  own  in- 
dependent conclusions  reached  after  a  most  pains- 
taking study.  He  has  endeavored  during  his  in- 
vestigations to  hold  in  strict  abeyance  all  his  pre- 
conceived opinions,  his  inherited  beliefs,  and  to 
follow  fearlessly  the  light  as  far  as  he  has  been 
able  to  see  the  light.  He  does  not  hold  a  brief 
for  any  established  school  of  thought,  for  any  sect 
of  faith ;  on  the  contrary  it  has  long  been  his  fixed 
determination  not  to  advocate  any  opinion,  how- 
ever authoritatively  affirmed,  which  he  cannot 
himself  fully  endorse  and  defend  after  mature 
reflection,  as  appearing  to  him  reasonable  and 
just.  Whether  he  has  arrived  at  the  truth, 
whether  he  has  been  able  to  shed  any  new  light  on 
this  most  intricate  of  themes  he  is  willing  to  leave 
to  the  thoughtful  consideration  of  all  who  have 
honest  doubts  to  solve,  and  who  are  sincerely  seek- 
ing to  solve  them. 

W.  W.  K. 

Washington,  D.  C. 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE  ? 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 


Skeptics  of  to-day  take  issue  with  Christian 
thinkers,  not  as  to  the  fact  of  a  historic  Christ, 
but  as  to  his  nature,  contending  that  he  is  noth- 
ing more  than  one  of  the  world's  great  original 
geniuses  who  attained  eminence  in  the  department 
of  religious  thought,  and  whose  fortune  it  was  to 
flourish  in  an  age  naturally  superstitious  because 
antedating  scientific  inquiry, — an  age  in  which 
popular  reverence  enveloped  the  heads  of  its  he- 
roes in  a  halo  of  divine  light  and  taxed  the  cre- 
dulity of  after-centuries  by  myths  and  traditions 
of  their  marvelous  miracle-working. 

They  do  not  hesitate  to  concede  that  he  was  a 
man  of  excellent  spirit,  profound  wisdom,  excep- 
tionally pure  life,  that  his  discourses  abound  in 
most  praiseworthy  sentiment.  Neither  do  they 
hesitate  to  affirm  that  to  account  him  Divine  even 
in  any  qualified  sense  is  a  notion  excusable,  it  may 
be,  in  some  confiding  child-age  of  the  world,  awed 
by  mystery  and  ridden  by  priests,  but  ill  beseem- 
ing the  bold,  investigating  spirit  of  the  twentieth 
century. 

As  this  opinion  widely  prevails  in  learned  and 
especially  scientific  circles,  and  is  gaining  ground 
so  rapidly  that  we  meet  it  everywhere  in  books,  in 
the  columns  of  the  press,  on  the  platform,  and 


2  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

in  the  thoughtful  social  circle,  every  earnest 
truth-seeker  feels  impelled  thoroughly  to  re-exam- 
ine this  most  vital  and  vexed  of  all  the  questions 
that  have  come  up  for  settlement,  "What  think  ye 
of  Christ?  whose  son  is  he?"  and  to  decide  whether 
the  answer  given  by  infidel  or  Christian  best  bears 
the  crucial  test  of  modern  thought. 

We  find  on  reflection  that  this  question  natur- 
ally resolves  itself  into  these  three : 

1.  Is  the  human  race  of  sufficient  worth  to  war- 
rant  such   condescension   and   sacrifice   on   God's 
part  as  were  displayed  in  Christ? 

2.  Is  such  earthly  mission  absolutely  necessary 
to  free  man  from  the  guilt  of  sin  and  the  power 
of  it? 

3.  Are  there  in  the  characteristics  and  career 
of  Christ  convincing  evidences  that  he  was  that 
Divine  Visitant  engaged  in  this  most  astounding 
mission  of  mercy? 

1.  Is  the  human  race  of  such  transcendent 
worth  that  the  great  God  of  the  universe,  in  order 
to  reclaim  it  from  sin,  would  enter  into  any  excep- 
tionally intimate  relationship  with  a  single  frail 
human  spirit,  identify  himself  in  closest  sympathy 
with  its  sacrificial  life  of  extremest  poverty  and 
humiliation  in  which  it  will  consent  to  be  scoffed 
at,  traduced,  forsaken  by  friends,  and  finally  put 
to  a  cruel  and  shameful  death  by  the  hands  of 
hate? 

When  we  view  the  vast  world-peopled  heavens 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  3 

through  the  tubes  of  our  telescopes,  and  reflect 
that  our  little  earth  is  but  a  single  grain  of  sand 
on  the  measureless  shores  of  immensity,  that  the 
solar  system,  of  which  our  globe  is  but  a  very 
inconspicuous  member,  is  only  one  of  millions 
of  similar  systems  that  compose  the  Galaxy  or 
Milky  Way  whose  luminous  band  encircles  the 
heavens;  and  that  this  mighty  nebula  is  but  one 
out  of  thousands  of  sun-clusters  already  un- 
covered by  the  searching  eye  of  science,  we  are 
overwhelmed  with  the  vastness  of  God's  plans 
and  cares,  and  instinctively  feel  that  it  would  be 
the  height  of  presumption  to  suppose  that  he 
has  given  any  special  attention  to  the  welfare 
of  this  single  race  of  beings  that  inhabit  this 
little  satellite,  much  more  that  he  has  entered 
into  close  sympathetic  union  with  a  member  of  an 
obscure  peasant  family  of  Jews,  who  permitted 
himself  to  be  despised,  afflicted,  and  smitten  of 
men. 

If  we  confine  our  minds  to  these  lines  -of 
thought  solely,  the  upas  tree  of  unbelief  will 
soon  cast  its  baleful  shadow  over  us.  But, 
happily,  science  has  carried  the  torch  of  knowl- 
edge far  down  the  corridors  of  forgotten  time 
and  disclosed  a  well-nigh  infinite  patience  and 
painstaking  on  the  part  of  the  Almighty  in  in- 
carnating right  here,  by  successive  acts  of  crea- 
tion, his  conception  of  life.  The  earth  is  small 
indeed,  being  twelve  hundred  thousand  times  less 
in  bulk  than  the  sun  it  circles.  But  the  micro- 


4  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

scope  tells  us  that  God  does  not  need  vast  stel- 
lar spaces  and  ponderous  masses  of  matter  in 
which  to  work  his  wonders;  that  he  can  embody 
his  choicest  thoughts,  as  readily  within  the  in- 
finitesimal boundaries  of  atoms  as  within  the  wide 
circumferences  of  suns ;  that  with  him  bulk  or 
avoirdupois  is  not  the  unit  of  worth;  that  the 
germ-force  lodged  inside  every  minute  sphere 
of  fish-spawn  exhibits  in  its  work  the  same  Divine 
depths  of  wisdom  and  perfection  of  skill  that 
characterize  the  operations  of  those  mighty 
organizing  forces  that  convert  amorphic  vapor- 
banks  into  million-sphered  sun-clusters.  The 
spectroscope  tells  us  that  other  worlds  are  con- 
stituted like  our  own,  that  processes  of  planet- 
making  are  still  going  on,  and  that  marks  of  in- 
completeness and  evidences  of  continued  evolu- 
tion are  clearly  traceable;  and  the  idea  naturally 
suggests  itself  that  it  is  by  no  means  improbable 
that  many  yet  incomplete  and  uninhabited  worlds 
are  to  be  peopled  from  this  very  globe  of  ours. 
Certain  it  is,  through  the  gates  of  death  have 
passed  out  somewhere,  age  after  age,  countless 
multitudes  of  disembodied  spirits;  and  who  can 
tell  when  this  mysterious  procession  of  throng- 
ing souls  shall  cease  to  come  and  go  across  this 
narrow  stage  of  being?  For  aught  we  know, 
earth  is  the  nursery  of  the  universe,  the  great 
training-school  of  the  stars. 

The    very    scientists    who    decry    Christianity 
have  by  their  researches  unwittingly  so  exalted 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  5 

our  conceptions  of  man's  place  in  Nature  as  to 
silence  all  questioning  whether,  in  order  to  effect 
his  salvation,  God  would  consent  to  such  a  sacri- 
fice as  that  claimed,  provided  this  end  could  in  no 
other  way  be  secured.  Most  abundant  and  con- 
vincing evidences  have  been  unearthed  of  the  fact 
that  God,  after  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years 
of  patient  progressive  work,  reached  in  man  the 
full  and  final  expression,  the  ultima  Thule,  of 
creative  thought  on  this  planet. 

Would  that  somehow  we  might  be  lifted  in  con- 
templation to  some  far  height,  where  with  sweep- 
ing glance  we  could  note  as  mapped  out  beneath 
us  over  the  populous  periods  of  the  past  those 
majestic  outlines  of  Divine  purpose  which  found 
in  man,  in  his  gifts  and  destiny,  its  long-awaited 
consummation ! 

In  our  geological  researches  we  find  that  God 
revealed  almost  at  the  outset  his  full  ground- 
plan  of  vital  organization,  the  fossil  records  of 
the  rocks  declaring  that  mollusks,  radiates, 
articulates,  and  vertebrates — the  four  cardinal 
characteristics,  the  set  patterns  after  which  all 
bodily  forms  have  since  been  built — appeared  on 
the  earth  nearly  at  the  same  epoch;  and  the  fact 
that  around  these  primal  conceptions  all  other 
creative  thoughts  have  clustered  and  have  served 
simply  to  unfold  their  well-nigh  inexhaustible 
possibilities  of  adaptation  to  the  demands  of  an 
ever-varying  environment;  and  the  further  fact 
that  not  one  of  them  has  fallen  into  disuse,  but 


6  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

is  as  distinct  and  dominant  to-day  as  at  their  first 
appearing,  that  they  have  survived  all  changes, 
withstood  climates  and  cataclysms,  have  neither 
increased  nor  diminished,  were  clearly  marked  at 
the  first,  are  clearly  marked  now — may  be  taken 
as  a  sure  token  that  God's  ultimate  purpose  as 
to  the  framework  of  living  organisms  has  been 
reached. 

After  the  highest,  most  complex  of  these  four 
types — the  vertebrates — the  human  body  has 
been  fashioned,  and  in  this  sub-kingdom  it  ranks 
among  the  Mammalia,  the  highest  of  the  five 
classes,  and  in  this  class  among  the  Primates, 
the  highest  of  the  twelve  orders,  being  considered 
by  scientists  the  last  term  of  an  organic  series. 
And  it  not  only  far  surpasses  all  other  organisms 
as  a  physical  instrument  of  the  mind,  but  bears 
upon  it  such  marks  of  Divine  completeness,  such 
absolute  competency  to  perform  the  most  com- 
plicated and  the  most  exalted  tasks  to  which 
pieces  of  mechanism  can  possibly  be  assigned, 
that  we  may  safely  affirm  that  in  it  the  full  Di- 
vine ideal  has  been  attained. 

Let  us  consider  this  a  little  in  detail.  Hugh 
Miller  has  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  in 
man  alone  the  body  assumes  an  ideal  position. 
No  other  vertebrate  stands  erect.  Between  the 
horizontal  fish  and  the  partially  stooping  ape 
spinal  columns  may  be  found  at  every  degree  of 
the  quadrant. 

In   organs   of   sense-perception  and  in  powers 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  7 

of  manipulation  man's  body  furnishes  to  his  in- 
tellect an  equipment  so  admirable  in  its  com- 
pleteness that  nothing  further  can  reasonably  be 
desired  or  can  be  used  to  advantage,  and  in  the 
well-nigh  universal  range  of  its  capacities  is  im- 
measurably superior  to  that  of  any  other  animal. 
It  is  true  that  a  dog's  scent,  a  gorilla's  hand,  an 
eagle's  eye,  a  horse's  neck,  in  some  points  sur- 
pass our  own.  Many  animals  have  been  better 
clad  by  Nature  for  warmth  and  beauty  than  we, 
have  more  impenetrable  armor,  sharper  claws 
and  teeth,  easier  and  swifter  locomotion,  greater 
powers  of  endurance.  Many  have  their  limbs 
terminated  in  most  cunningly  fashioned  tools, 
which  from  the  first  they  know  precisely  how  to 
use  most  effectively.  But  though  we  can  point 
to  this  one  or  that  which  in  some  respects  has  an 
organ  more  perfect,  or  more  perfectly  under 
control,  yet  through  the  sovereignty  of  our  in- 
tellects, through  their  power  of  inventive  and 
adaptive  thought,  we  are  able  to  bring  our 
bodies  into  such'  development  and  training,  and 
to  fashion  and  place  in  our  hands  such  tools,  and 
so  to  supplement  our  organs  by  those  of  the 
animals  below  us,  which  we  domesticate,  and  also 
so  to  utilize  Nature's  forces,  that  our  minds  have 
at  last  at  their  disposal  the  acutest  senses  and 
the  strongest  muscles  in  the  world.  We  make 
our  own  the  scent  of  the  dog,  the  wing  power 
of  the  bird,  the  strength  of  the  horse,  the  sight 
of  the  cat,  the  instinct  of  the  bee. 


8  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

The  camel,  that  living  ship  of  the  desert,  with 
its  great  store  of  fat  on  its  back,  thick  sole  on 
its  foot,  long  lash  of  its  eye,  its  self-closing  nos- 
tril, capacious  honeycombed  water-bags,  won- 
drously  acute  sight  and  smell,  its  almost  exhaust- 
less  endurance  of  muscular  fiber,  is  especially 
fitted  to  withstand  the  privations  and  the  blind- 
ing, suffocating  siroccos  of  the  desert.  Man  has 
long  since  so  thoroughly  domesticated  the  only 
two  known  species  of  this  animal  that  not  a  single 
individual  now  exists  in  a  wild  state.  It  has  be- 
come so  emphatically  the  servant  of  man  that  the 
earth's  widest  sand-wastes  have  been  turned  into 
highways  of  commerce,  across  which  richly  laden 
caravans  are  constantly  threading  their  way. 

We  not  only  develop  our  own  organs  into 
marvelous  capacity  by  patient  training  and  sup- 
plement them  by  appropriating  those  of  the 
brutes,  but  we  vastly  multiply  their  original  re- 
sources by  ingenious  seizure  of  Nature's  ele- 
mental forces,  so  that  we  speak  with  telephones, 
look  through  the  tubes  of  great  refractors,  add 
to  our  detective  sense  of  taste  and  touch  and 
smell  by  chemical  tests,  multiply  our  muscular 
powers  by  applying  steam,  wind,  electric  energies, 
until  we  can  lift  mountains,  walk  over  seas  or 
under  them,  send  our  voices  across  continents, 
transport  our  bodies  to  the  clouds  or  burrow 
them  thousands  of  feet  under  ground,  brave  the 
suns  of  tropics  and  the  frozen  breath  of  arctic 
zones.  From  the  shorn  lamb's  fleece  and  the 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  9 

worm's  spun  shroud  we  weave  our  woolen  and 
silken  fabrics.  The  furry  skins  of  the  seal  and 
the  otter  and  the  mink  protect  our  hairless  backs, 
the  brilliant  feathers  of  birds  grace  our  persons, 
the  skilled  industries  of  all  the  instinct-guided 
creatures  below  us  contribute  to  the  cheer  and 
beauty  of  our  homes.  Were  our  bodies  more 
fully  equipped,  our  minds  would  have  less 
stimulus  for  development.  Just  enough  of  bodily 
endowment  has  been  granted  to  show  us  what  we 
lack  and  how  to  get  it,  to  create  in  us  a  desire 
and  a  purpose  to  add  to  our  store,  the  effect 
being  not  to  discourage,  but  to  awaken  and  in- 
cite. No  animal  has  any  natural  bodily  advan- 
tage that  is  not  in  our  reach  to  acquire  or  use 
so  that  all  the  marvelous  gifts  of  all  the  species 
of  sentient  life  we  have  a  right  to  regard  as  parts 
of  our  own  fleshly  furnishings,  and  we  have  rea- 
son to  believe  that  for  the  housing  of  the  human 
mind  all  Nature  has  been  commissioned  by  the 
Almighty  to  pay  bountiful  tribute.  In  this  ele- 
ment of  universality  lie  the  insignia  of  royalty. 
The  bee  steps  out  from  its  cradle  most  admirably 
equipped  with  tools  for  a  specified  work  and  with 
all  the  unerring  skill  of  an  expert,  but  its  sphere 
is  an  extremely  narrow  one.  It  has  no  reaching 
out  of  desire  or  of  power,  except  for  the  smallest 
part  of  this  broad  heritage.  To  drink  from  the 
nectar  cup  of  flowers,  to  fill  its  pollen  baskets  and 
wax  pouches,  to  build  its  cells  and  store  them 
with  honey  or  eggs — these  are  to  it  the  sum  total 


10  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

of  life,  its  utmost  longing,  its  unchangeable 
destiny.  So  with  every  other  one  of  God's  crea- 
tures. In  marked  contrast  to  man,  most  cir- 
cumscribed spheres  and  subordinate  positions  are 
assigned  them. 

Furthermore,  man's  bodily  organs,  even  when 
taken  apart  by  themselves,  unsupplemented,  are, 
if  considered  each  in  the  entirety  of  its  powers, 
in  its  flexibility  and  range,  immeasurably  supe- 
rior to  those  of  all  other  animals,  even  the  most 
gifted. 

Man's  hand,  which  is  far  in  the  lead  of  all  his 
other  organs  as  a  serviceable  implement  of  the 
mind,  though  in  general  structure  and  charac- 
teristics resembling  that  of  the  ape  or  of  the 
lemuroid,  is  vastly  superior  as  to  both  the 
variety,  delicacy,  precision,  and  swiftness  of  its 
movements.  Only  man's  hand  is  fully  and  per- 
manently lifted  from  the  ground,  and  relieved 
from  the  task  of  assisting  in  locomotion  and  sup- 
port— tasks  which  greatly  tend  to  lessen  its  sup- 
pleness and  to  blunt  its  finer  sensibilities.  It 
alone  can  with  readiness  oppose  the  thumb  to 
the  fingers  for  the  purposes  of  seizure,  or  is  cap- 
able of  pronation  and  supination — that  is,  of  so 
rolling  itself  that  the  back  or  the  palm  shall  at 
will  lie  uppermost.  The  gorilla's  hand  has 
greater  grasping  power,  but  in  this  its  supe- 
riority ceases ;  for,  being  designed  only  for  coarse 
and  menial  offices,  as  the  servant  of  a  sluggish, 
shallow,  and  wholly  brutish  mind,  every  finer 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  11 

quality  either  was  at  the  first  denied  it,  or  has 
through   neglect   been   long   since   withdrawn. 

It  is  in  the  hand  that  our  sense  of  touch  is 
most  acute.  We  feel  by  means  of  papillae, — rod- 
like  bodies  about  one-hundreth  of  an  inch  long, 
coming  up  out  of  the  lowest  part  of  the  cuticle, 
and  composed  of  nerves,  blood-vessels,  and 
fibrous  tissue — and  it  is  right  at  the  tips  of  our 
fingers  that  these  are  the  most  abundant,  though 
they  may  be  found  scattered  everywhere  over  the 
surface  of  the  body,  and  the  extent  to  which  the 
revealing  power  of  the  fingers  through  this  sense 
has  been  carried  by  careful  culture  may  well  fill 
us  with  most  profound  amazement.  Experts 
among  the  world's  workers  sometimes  seem  gifted 
with  magical  insight.  The  sflk  throwsters  of 
Bengal,  for  instance,  can  by  touch  alone  dis- 
tinguish twenty  different  degrees  of  fineness  in 
cocoons,  even  before  they  are  unwound.  The 
achievements  of  the  blind,  who  have  been  forced 
to  make  their  fingers  supply  in  part  their  loss 
of  sight,  show  us  how  limitless  are  our  possibili- 
ties in  this  direction,  for  they  have  gone  so  far 
as  to  determine  even  differences  of  color,  so  we 
are  informed  by  Dr.  Kitto  in  his  work  on  The 
Lost  Senses.  This  expertness  is  attained  by  con- 
stantly recalling  former  experiences,  instituting 
comparisons,  and  completely  absorbing  the  at- 
tention. Dr.  William  B.  Carpenter  assures  us 
that  we  can  by  persistently  willing  it  increase 
the  flow  of  the  nourishing  blood  to  any  point  in 


12  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

the  body,  and  thereby  perceptibly  increase  the 
vigor  and  activity,  and  promote  the  growth,  of 
any  organ  or  sense.  Even  minute  papillae  can 
thus  be  reached  and  rendered  more  effective.  In- 
deed, no  limit  has  yet  been  found  to  their  attain- 
ment when  the  capacious,  aspiring,  dominant 
mind  insists  upon  increased  facilities  of  outlook. 
The  body  is  under  the  plastic  power  of  the  mind 
far  more  than  we  are  apt  to  think.  How  the 
musician  adds  by  patient  drill  to  the  strength, 
celerity,  and  precision  of  his  finger  touch!  His 
hands  at  last  fly  over  the  keyboard  of  the  piano 
like  fairy  sprites,  executing  with  lightning  speed 
and  delicate  nicety  the  most  difficult  commands 
of  their  master.  He  has,  it  is  true,  found  one 
impediment  in  the  way  of  the  perfection  of  his 
art,  but  he  has  also  found  that  that  impediment 
can  be  removed  by  the  skill  of  the  surgeon. 
There  is  a  certain  cord,  a  relic  from  our  brute 
ancestry,  so  scientists  tell  us,  that  partially  binds 
the  third  finger.  The  lancet  sets  it  free. 

It  is  deeply  interesting  to  note  the  various 
partial  embodiments  of  the  Divine  ideal  in  this 
portion  of  the  body's  furnishing,  to  see  in  how 
many  ways  the  hand  may  be  modified  to  suit  the 
different  needs  of  different  modes  of  life,  an- 
swering as  a  paddle  to  the  whale,  its  digits  with- 
out claws  or  nails  being  so  connected  and  covered 
with  integument  as  to  have  their  individuality 
well-nigh  obscured;  serving  as  a  wing  to  the  bat, 
its  elongated  fingers  glued  fast  to  broad  pieces 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  13 

of  skin  to  be  spread  or  furled  at  the  pleasure  of 
this  little  flying  mouse ;  or  serving  as  a  grasp- 
ing hook  to  the  sloth,  with  which  to  hang  in  mid- 
air hour  after  hour  from  some  branch  in  its 
forest  home,  its  slender  fingers,  lying  side  by 
side,  always  curved  and  ending  in  curved  claws; 
or,  still  further,  being  used  as  a  nut-pick  by  the 
aye-aye,  with  its  single  bony  finger  stretched  out 
to  a  seemingly  abnormal  length. 

But,  while  we  note  how  each  brute's  hand  is 
admirably  fitted  for  some  specific  work,  we  note 
also  how  specific  that  work  is,  how  extremely 
limited  the  sphere  of  action,  how  forever  pre- 
cluded, by  the  peculiarity  of  its  structure  and  the 
hopelessly  menial  character  of  its  tasks,  from 
any  further  enlargement  or  refinement  of  power. 
As  we  study  the  achievements  of  the  human  hand, 
and  observe  how  the  human  mind  can,  seemingly 
without  limit,  multiply  and  exalt  its  powers,  we 
feel  warranted  in  regarding  this  most  wonder- 
ful combination  of  bone  and  horny  plate,  muscle 
and  tendon  and  cartilage,  ligament,  cuticle, 
blood-vessel,  and  nerve  fiber,  as  the  final  and  full 
embodiment  of  God's  ideal,  as  in  this  direction 
the  ultima  Thule  of  his  thought. 

This  is  equally  true  of  the  mind's  other  fleshly 
furnishings.  Anatomists  astonish  us  with  the 
statement  that,  in  providing  a  window  through 
which  man  may  look  out  on  earth  and  sky,  there 
has  been  effected  a  combination  of  eight  hun- 
'dred  different  complemental  contrivances.  The 


14  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

structure  of  the  eye  is  essentially  the  same  in  all 
the  mammalian  genera.  There  are,  it  is  true, 
some  animals  of  peculiar  needs  which  have  had 
their  eyes  correspondingly  modified.  Amphibi- 
ous mammals,  as  the  whale  and  seal,  have  eyes 
built,  like  the  fish,  without  tear  glands,  with 
spherical  lenses,  and  with  thickened  rear  walls 
for  pushing  forward  the  retinae,  and  thus  secur- 
ing great  refractive  and  microscopic  power,  in 
order  that  they  may  thus  more  readily  find  their 
way  and  procure  their  food  in  the  dense  salt  seas. 
In  some  genera  the  shape  of  the  pupil  is  varied, 
and  in  some  the  eye's  interior  chamber,  instead 
of  being  painted  black,  fitted  for  absorbing  light, 
is  covered  with  a  pigment  of  brilliant  metallic 
luster,  fitted  for  reflecting  it  on  the  retina,  and 
thus  rendering  it  possible  for  the  animal  to  see 
and  seize  its  prey  in  the  darkest  hours  of  night. 
The  birds,  a  lower  order  of  creation,  have  eyes 
which,  to  suit  the  demands  of  swifter  locomotion, 
can  adjust  the  focus  for  different  distances  more 
rapidly  than  mammals.  They  also  have  a  third 
eyelid,  which,  when  not  in  use,  lies  folded  at  the 
inner  corner,  ready  to  be  spread  by  two  little 
muscles  which  have  it  in  charge,  like  a  thin  gauze 
veil,  to  temper  the  sun's  glare,  which  otherwise 
would  blind  them.  Insects'  eyes  are  made  sta- 
tionary; and  to  enable  these  Lilliputians  to  see 
in  every  direction,  each  one  has  been  furnished 
with  two  clusters,  each  cluster  numbering,  in  some 
cases,  as  of  the  beetles,  as  high  as  twenty  thou- 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  15 

sand,  each  eye  set  in  different  directions,  and 
having  a  separate  optic  nerve,  lens,  iris,  and 
pupil.  But  these  variations  are  simply  offsets 
to  disadvantages  belonging  to  the  habitat,  or 
ways  of  making  good  some  defect  inherent  in  the 
eye  itself.  Man's  eye,  with  its  power  to  roll  in 
the  socket,  lubricate  the  parts,  enlarge  the  pupil, 
adjust  the  focus,  and  avoid  spherical  aberration, 
seems  to  lack  in  nothing  essential  to  perfect 
vision.  It  has  power  to  see  a  particle  measuring 
but  one  five-hundreth  of  an  inch  on  a  side,  and 
a  thread  but  one  forty-nine  hundreth  of  an  inch 
in  thickness.  Whatever  its  limitations  and  de- 
fects, the  mind  has  found  it  quite  possible  to 
fully  make  them  good,  not  only  by  artificial  aids, 
the  results  of  its  ingenious  contriving,  but  by 
sheer  force  of  will,  compelling  the  blood  to 
strengthen  it  and  enlarge  its  varied  parts,  as 
already  alluded  to.  But,  more  especially,  it  can, 
by  rigidly  fixing  the  attention,  constantly  striv- 
ing after  closer  observation,  cultivating  its 
aesthetic  tastes,  contrasting  and  comparing, 
finally,  in  a  most  marked  degree,  increase  the 
sensitiveness  of  the  retina  so  that  the  most  deli- 
cate lines  in  the  sunbeam-painted  pictures  shall 
stand  out  distinctly  without  blur  or  defacement, 
and  the  impression  in  all  its  fullness  shall  be 
carried  over  the  optic  nerve  to  the  brain.  Just 
here  lies  the  eye's  chief  capacity  for  improve- 
ment and  enlargement  of  power,  and,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  hand,  there  has  yet  been  found  no 


16  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

limit  to  the  mind's  plastic  influence  over  it.  The 
experiences  of  artisans  and  artists  and  star- 
gazers,  and  all  trained  observers,  abundantly 
corroborate  this  statement. 

Very  few  of  the  objects  that  come  within  the 
brute's  range  of  vision  ever  make  an  impression 
on  the  brute's  brain.  No  cognizance  is  taken. 
Sunbeams  may  paint  their  pictures  never  so 
deftly,  they  fade  unnoticed  from  the  canvas. 
Here  has  been  provided  an  apparatus  whose  pos- 
sibilities of  achievement  lay  all  undiscovered  until 
the  advent  of  man,  and  that  too  of  the  most 
gifted  and  cultured  man, — possibilities  which  are 
still  unexhausted  and  even  undetermined,  not- 
withstanding so  many  centuries  of  civilization. 
There  is  certainly  every  indication  that  God  here 
contemplates  no  improvement  which  use  can  not 
develop,  that  he  has  given  to  this  organ  its  stamp 
of  Divine  completeness. 

The  human  ear  is  a  marvel  and  a  mystery — 
a  marvel  in  the  scope  and  perfection  of  its  in- 
terpretative power,  a  mystery  in  the  modes  of  its 
working.  Scientists  with  all  their  tireless  re- 
search confess  that  in  many  very  important  par- 
ticulars it  still  baffles  their  efforts  to  unlock  its 
secrets.  The  anatomist,  with  his  dissecting 
knife,  his  microscope,  his  chemical  tests,  his 
delicate  scales,  and  his  minute  measuring  lines, 
has  been  enabled  to  present  to  us  a  passably 
clear  conception  of  the  different  parts  of  this 
piece  of  matchless  mechanism.  With  his  help  we 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  17 

note  first  the  auricle,  or  outer  ear,  with  its 
peculiarly  grooved  frame-work  of  cartilage  to 
serve  as  a  sounding  board.  The  pulses  of  the 
air,  we  find,  are  gathered  and  guided  by  this  into 
a  narrow,  winding  passage,  called  the  auditory 
canal,  along  which  they  beat  until  they  strike 
the  membrane  of  the  tympanum.  Behind  this 
lies  a  little  chamber,  known  as  the  middle  ear, 
across  which  is  hung  an  irregular  chain  of  bones 
— the  first  link  shaped  like  a  mallet,  the  second 
like  an  anvil,  the  third  as  round  and  small  as 
the  head  of  a  pin,  the  fourth  bearing  the  familiar 
form  of  a  stirrup.  These  are  supposed,  though 
not  known,  to  carry  along  their  line  the  vibratory 
movements  of  the  tympanic  membrane  to  the 
inner  ear,  in  which  lie  peripheral  end-organs  of 
the  minutely  subdivided  auditory  nerve.  Here, 
in  this  so-called  labyrinth,  are  the  vestibule,  the 
semicircular  canals,  and  the  cochlea.  Here  the 
outer  world's  messages  of  sound  are  in  some 
mysterious  way  sent  flashing  over  the  wires  until 
they  end  in  molecular  changes  of  the  brain. 

There  are  three  characteristics  of  musical 
sounds  which  by  this  instrument  we  are  able  to 
distinguish — the  pitch,  the  intensity,  and  the 
timbre  of  the  tone.  In  what  this  last  consists, 
in  the  determining  of  which  the  other  two  play 
no  part,  or  in  what  way  it  is  communicated,  are 
matters  of  still  grave  dispute.  But  what  puzzles 
scientists  most,  and  piques  their  curiosity,  is  the 
ear's  achievement  of  taking  in  and  communicat- 


18  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

ing  not  only  melody,  but  harmony  of  sound,  and 
at  the  same  time  keeping  separate  the  individual 
notes  which  are  used  in  each  combination. 
Whether  the  fibers  which  are  stretched  across  the 
central  coat  of  the  membrane  of  the  tympanum, 
and  radiate  from  the  attached  handle  of  the 
mallet  bone,  can,  by  means  of  their  difference  in 
length,  size,  and  tension,  sympathetically  re- 
spond to  the  different  waves  of  sound,  or  whether 
the  three  thousand  rods  of  the  organs  of  Corti 
to  be  found  floating  in  the  fluid  that  fills  the  wind- 
ing chambers  of  the  cochlea  constitute  a  key- 
board to  answer  the  air  wave's  finger  touch;  or 
whether  the  end  is  attained  through  some  yet 
undiscovered  process, — is  a  matter  still  to  be  de- 
termined. 

We  have  by  our  training  brought  this  wonder- 
ful instrument  to  such  a  degree  of  perfection  that 
we  have  succeeded  in  taking  cognizance  of  sounds 
so  low  as  to  be  formed  from  as  few  as  thirty 
vibrations  per  second,  and  so  high  as  to  come 
from  as  many  as  thirty  thousand,  so  flexible  is 
it,  so  capable  of  enlargement  of  capacity,  so  re- 
sponsive to  the  behests  of  the  aggressive  human 
will  behind  it.  Practical  musicians  have  at  last 
reached  such  keen  discrimination  that  they  per- 
ceive a  difference  of  pitch  amounting  to  no  more 
than  one  sixty-fourth  of  a  semitone.  Does  it 
not  seem  that  in  this  bodily  sense  also,  as  in  the 
others  considered,  the  Creator's  grand  ideal  has 
been  fully  realized? 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  19 

Our  olfactory  nerves,  though  in  some  cases 
less  acute  than  those  of  brutes,  are  evidently  of 
far  wider  range  and  suited  to  and  designed  for 
nobler  service,  being  something  more  than  grimly 
utilitarian,  to  be  employed  as  aids  in  procuring 
and  selecting  food,  and  in  sounding  alarm  when 
dangers  impend.  These  sets  of  nerves  in  man 
not  only  subserve  these  lower  ends,  but  are  also 
sources  of  exquisite  pleasure  and  aesthetic  refine- 
ment, and  enter  in  as  most  important  factors  in 
the  great  scheme  of  the  world's  intellectual  de- 
velopment. The  arts  and  sciences,  with  rarely  an 
exception,  place  them  under  tribute.  We  gain 
some  conception  of  the  well-nigh  preternatural 
sensitiveness  of  the  ends  of  these  minute  nerve- 
fibers,  as  well  as  of  the  almost  infinite  divisibility 
of  matter,  when  we  reflect  that  one  one-thou- 
sandth of  a  milligramme  of  mercaptan  when 
mixed  with  two  hundred  and  thirty  cubic  metres 
of  air  give  out  an  odor  clearly  perceptible  to  us. 
The  scientists,  who  recently  demonstrated  thist 
fact  by  experiment,  estimate  that  it  is  only  one 
fourteen  hundred  and  sixty  millionth  part  of  a 
milligramme  of  this  substance  that  comes  in  con- 
tact with  the  nerves  of  the  nose  at  any  one  time, 
yet  they  can  detect  its  presence.  But  the  fact  that 
it  lies  within  reach  of  the  human  will  to  indefinitely 
increase  the  range  and  power  of  this  interpreta- 
tive organ  should  be  especially  noted,  for  in  it  lies 
the  revelation  that  upon  this  subtile  sense  also  has 
been  affixed  the  seal  of  Divine  completeness. 


20  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

Had  we  space  we  might  cite  analogous  facts 
pertaining  to  our  powers  of  taste. 

That  which  has  been  found  true  with  reference 
to  those  gifts  of  body  that  disclose  what  lies  with- 
out, that  unlock  the  doors  opening  into  Nature's 
vast  arcana,  may  be  equally  affirmed  of  those 
that  reveal  what  lies  within,  such  as  articulate 
speech,  facial  expression,  gestures  and  pose  of 
body,  and  peculiarities  of  gait  and  intonations 
of  voice.  Our  bodies  have  here  very  marked 
original  versatility  of  utterance,  far  transcend- 
ing the  bodies  of  brutes.  Indeed,  they  have  been 
utterly  denied  articulate  speech,  and  laughter 
and  tears  and  the  tell-tale  blush  that  mantles 
brow  and  cheek.  For  proofs  of  the  almost  limit- 
less plastic  power  of  the  will  over  these  thought- 
transmitting  capacities  of  the  body  we  have  the 
confessions  of  noted  conversationalists  and  ora- 
tors and  actors  and  rapture-thrilling  vocalists, 
disclosing  to  us  how,  through  persistent,  pains- 
taking drill,  they  have  finally  attained  this  their 
most  wonderfully  complete  mastery. 

Wallace,  speaking  of  the  power,  range,  flexi- 
bility, and  sweetness  of  the  musical  sounds  pro- 
ducible by  the  human  larynx,  adds  that  the  habits 
of  savages  give  no  indication  of  how  this  faculty 
could  have  been  developed,  as  the  singing  of 
savages  is  a  more  or  less  monotonous  howling, 
and  the  females  seldom  sing  at  all.  It  seems  as 
if  the  organ  had  been  prepared  in  anticipation 
of  the  future  progress  of  man,  since  it  contains 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  21 

latent  capacities  which  are  useless  to  him  in  his 
earlier  condition. 

Actors,  to  render  more  certain  and  telling  their 
triumphs  by  kindling  the  imaginations  of  their 
audiences,  surround  themselves  with  the  acces- 
sories of  stage  scenery ;  and  for  the  voice  of  the 
singer  the  sounding  pipes  of  the  organ,  and  the 
notes  of  all  manner  of  metal  and  reed  and 
stringed  instruments,  are  called  in  as  accom- 
paniments, though  that  voice  soars  over  all  in 
the  grand  crescendo  passages  of  the  hallelujah 
chorus. 

And  then,  too,  what  charm  of  form,  grace  of 
motion,  delicate  tint  and  rapturous  glow  of 
beauty  are  reached  at  times  by  these  gifted 
organized  bodies  of  living  dust!  To  add  still 
further  to  the  inherent  powers  of  fascination  of 
the  body,  the  restless  spirit  that  dwells  within 
it,  and  seeks  through  it  aesthetic  expression,  decks 
it  with  flowers  and  plumes,  gems  and  gold,  and 
dyed  garments  of  gracefully  flowing  folds,  and, 
when  possible,  places  it  within  a  marble  palace 
where  electrically  lighted  apartments  are  ren- 
dered rich  with  works  of  decorative  art! 

But  the  foremost  of  all  the  organs  of  the 
human  body — that  which  lifts  man,  as  to  all 
other  orders  of  creation,  into  unapproachable 
pre-eminence — is  the  brain,  whose  massive  lobes 
of  convoluted  gray  matter  constitute,  as  is  sup- 
posed, the  seat  of  the  soul.  It  certainly  is  the 
central  office  from  which  radiates  that  com- 


22  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

plicated  system  of  nerve  lines  over  which  are  ever 
flashing  night  and  day,  waking  and  sleeping, 
telegrams  of  conscious  and  unconscious  thought. 
The  brain  of  the  fish  bears  an  average  propor- 
tion to  its  spine  of  not  more  than  two  to  one; 
of  the  reptile,  two  and  a  half  to  one ;  of  the  bird, 
three  to  one;  of  the  mammal,  four  to  one;  while 
that  of  man  bears  an  average  of  twenty-three  to 
one.  What  a  leap!  How  significant!  Here 
surely  is  a  great  gulf  fixed.  Man  is  thus  at  a 
single  bound  placed  at  an  almost  infinite  remove 
from  all  sentient  life  about  him  in  point  of 
thought  capacity;  and  in  the  already  completed 
centuries  of  his  history  he  has  shown  that  while 
there  are  some  resemblances,  there  are  not  only 
vastly  increased  mental  acumen  and  breadth, 
but  also  absolutely  radical  differences  of  mental 
structure;  for  while  with  the  lower  animals  in- 
stinct is  at  the  front ;  with  man,  reason,  the  insect 
and  the  brute  following  blindly  a  course  marked 
out  by  another,  man  deliberately  determining  on 
a  course  for  himself.  While  one  is  confined  to  a 
narrow  sphere  and  to  temporary  dominion,  hav- 
ing no  desire  for  or  prospect  of  progress,  the 
other,  ever  restless  and  dissatisfied  at  his  present 
status,  is  driven  on  by  an  insatiable  longing  from 
conquest  to  conquest  until  to  every  thoughtful 
student  of  individual  and  national  history  comes 
the  grand  conception  that  man  has  been  created 
for  universal  dominion  and  for  endless  growth; 
that  he  was  the  long-expected  guest  toward  whom 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  23 

all  the  prophecies  in  Nature  have  been  pointing 
through  the  long  geologic  ages,  that  into  his 
hands  have  been  intrusted  all  the  wonder-work- 
ing forces  with  which  Nature  abounds,  the  keys 
that  unlock  all  the  secret  storehouses  of  material 
wealth,  the  art  galleries,  the  conservatories  of 
music,  all  the  treasuries  of  suggestive  thought. 
Surely  it  was  for  him,  who  has  shown  himself 
capable  of  utilizing  her  riches,  developing  her 
possibilities,  perfecting  her  incompleteness,  train- 
ing her  forces,  interpreting  her  hieroglyphs  writ- 
ten on  rock  and  sky,  on  sea  and  land,  this  wide 
world  of  wonders  was  being  molded  by  the  Crea- 
tive Hand.  It  was  for  man  the  crystalline  forces 
in  some  long  ago  gathered  the  sediment  of  the 
primal  seas  into  rock  quarries  and  salt  beds,  the 
vegetative  forces  produced  the  dense  conifer 
growths  of  the  carboniferous  era  and  volcanic 
fires  buried  and  baked  them  into  beds  of  coal. 
For  him  the  waters  swarmed  with  fish,  the  fields 
were  white  with  cotton,  the  long-fibered  fleece 
grew  on  the  back  of  the  sheep,  even  the  lowly 
worm  spun  and  wove  its  silken  shroud,  the  forest 
oak  buried  its  great  roots  in  the  soil,  threw  out 
its  banners  of  leaves,  and  with  its  mighty  arms 
grappled  with  the  fierce  storms  of  centuries  in 
order  that  he  might  from  its  tough  and  sinewy 
stem  fashion  ribs  for  his  ships  and  build  a 
sheltering  home  for  his  little  ones. 

The  fact  that  the  earth  had  for  ages  been  a 
vast   reservoir   of  minerals  lying  idle  till  man's 


24  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

advent,  and  that  those  qualities  which  render 
them  fusible,  malleable,  ductile,  soluble,  sealed 
secrets  to  all  but  him,  have  rendered  them 
through  his  inventions  conducive  to  his  comfort 
and  culture,  is  proof  positive  that  it  was  for  these 
very  ends  of  use  and  for  this  very  being  of 
marvelous  gifts  that  God  fashioned  them  at  the 
first. 

The  fact  that  electricity — which  for  ages 
simply  hung  across  the  northern  skies  its  myste- 
rious banners  of  light  and  now  and  then  crashed 
down  from  the  clouds  in  death-dealing  thunder- 
bolts— now,  man's  tamed  Titan,  lights  the  streets 
of  his  cities,  his  workshops  and  his  marble 
halls,  drives  his  machinery,  draws  his  carriages, 
and  flashes  his  thought  over  the  everywhere  in- 
terlacing telegraphic  highways  of  modern  life,  is 
proof  positive  that  it  was  for  these  very  ends  of 
use  and  for  this  wondrous  being  that  God  fash- 
ioned at  the  first  this  most  astonishing  of  all  the 
forms  of  elemental  force. 

The  fact  that  man  has  shown  himself  capable, 
by  following  out  the  suggestions  of  Nature,  of 
becoming  a  sort  of  sub-creator,  a  finisher  of 
God's  work,  developing  new  and  improved  varie- 
ties of  fruit  and  vegetables  and  exercising  a  plas- 
tic power  even  in  the  charmed  circle  of  animal 
life,  reclaiming  the  desert  and  morass,  adding 
new  tints  to  the  rose,  new  lines  of  symmetry  to 
the  tree,  new  grace  of  curve  to  the  river,  new  and 
fuller  combination  of  charms  to  the  landscape 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  25 

beauties  with  which  earth  abounds,  is  proof  posi- 
tive that  it  was  in  anticipation  of  man's  coming 
that  God  left  his  work  thus  incomplete,  and  that 
it  is  to  man's  hand  God  at  the  first  determined 
to  entrust  the  finishing. 

The  fact  that  man  has  proved  himself  able  to 
thrive  in  all  climes,  on  all  foods,  to  build  for  him- 
self homes  out  of  all  materials,  to  make  the  whole 
world  his  habitat,  all  animal  species,  all  kinds  of 
force,  his  docile  household  servants,  his  winged 
messengers,  clothiers,  purveyors,  architects,  even 
artists,  and,  when  occasion  fits,  his  grand  orches- 
tral choir,  is  proof  positive  that  it  was  pre- 
eminently for  man  that  God  thus  exercised  his 
almost  infinitely  provident  thought  on  this 
planet. 

The  fact  that  man  is  thus  a  microcosm,  all 
types  of  living  organisms  centering  in  him  and 
becoming  perfected ;  that  he  is  fast  reaching  uni- 
versal sovereignty  through  his  ever-widening 
knowledge,  stretching  out  his  scepter  over  the 
three  great  kingdoms  of  the  world — the  mineral, 
the  vegetable,  and  the  animal — and  leaving  the 
imprint  of  his  personality  everywhere;  that  he  is 
the  great,  the  only  cosmopolite  at  home  on  sand 
wastes  or  on  tossing  seas,  in  sheltered  nooks  or 
wind-swept  mountain  summits,  under  blazing 
equatorial  skies  or  amid  the  brooding  stillness 
and  desolation  of  the  land  of  the  iceberg  and  the 
creeping  glacier;  that  he  can  by  a  plastic, 
an  almost  creative  touch  round  out  the 


26  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

partially  finished  designs  of  Nature  into  full 
completeness ;  that  he  can  hold  converse  through 
Nature  with  Nature's  God,  interpreting  the 
thoughts  embodied  in  earth's  phenomena,  deci- 
phering the  handwriting  on  the  leaves  of  the  rock 
records  of  vast  geologic  periods,  and  thus  trac- 
ing the  ongoing  and  noting  the  trend  of  the 
Divine  purposes  as  from  age  to  age  they  have 
found  embodiment,  and  discovering  in  this  his- 
tory of  earth's  evolution  evidences  of  the  sound- 
ness of  his  own  scientific  classifications  and  there- 
by the  striking  likeness  of  his  own  thought  to 
that  of  the  Divine,  threading  his  way  through 
the  labyrinthine  mazes  of  the  star-peopled 
heavens,  determining  the  mechanism  of  the  uni- 
verse, calculating  eclipses,  weighing  and  analyz- 
ing suns;  the  fact  that  he  can  thus,  through  his 
susceptibilities,  his  faculties  of  memory,  of  per- 
ception, of  reasoning,  of  conceptive  imagination, 
transmute  into  a  populous  world  of  thought  with- 
in, this  populous  world  of  fact  without,  furnishes 
proof  positive  that  it  was  for  this  very  end  of 
use,  the  surrounding  of  man's  spirit  with  a  fitting 
environment,  this  planet  has  under  the  creative 
and  directive  power  of  God  been  undergoing  proc- 
esses of  evolution  that  extend  back  over  a  period 
so  vastly  remote  that  it  completely  transcends 
our  utmost  reach  of  thought. 

When  we  contemplate  how  inconceivably  many 
have  been  the  centuries  consumed  by  God  in  his 
patient  painstaking  preparation  for  man's  com- 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  27 

ing,  what  astounding  riches  of  invention  he  has 
lavished  upon  it,  what  mighty  and  subtile  second- 
ary causes  have  been  commissioned  to  forward  the 
work,  when  with  the  help  of  science  we  trace  the 
mighty  evolution  of  the  ages  and  learn  at  last 
that  man  is  the  grand  goal  of  creative  purpose, 
the  supreme  consummation,  the  ultima  Thule  of 
Divine  thought  on  this  planet,  how  strikingly 
inadequate  seem  to  us  all  the  current  esti- 
mates placed  upon  human  life  and  human  des- 
tiny ! 

And  yet  I  have  directed  attention  only  to  the 
less  important  of  God's  preparations  for  man's 
coming  and  to  the  less  valuable  of  his  bestow- 
ments  upon  this  most  favored  child  of  his  choice. 
To  this  complicate  world-environment,  to  this 
subtile,  organized  body,  to  this  interpretative  and 
scepter-winning  faculty  of  deliberative  thought, 
were  added  what  far  transcend  them  all  and  to 
which  they  were  evidently  designed  but  as  acces- 
sories— the  gifts  of  moral  discernment  and  of  re- 
sponsible free  choice.  From  their  exercise,  char- 
acter— that  which  lifts  us  from  brute  being  into 
Divine  likeness — is  finally  evolved.  This,  from 
the  very  nature  of  the  case,  God  could  not 
directly  create,  but  that  this  was  a  consumma- 
tion which  ever  lay  uppermost  in  all  his  thought 
through  all  the  ages,  to  which  he  made  every 
other  consideration  bend,  there  is  now  no  shadow 
of  doubt.  His  entire  endeavor  was  directed  to 
the  making  ready  the  conditions  out  of  which 


28  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

character  might  be  the  final  fruitage.  To  this 
end  he  not  only  bestowed  upon  man  this  gift  of 
sovereignty,  of  absolute  freedom  of  choice,  and 
gave  him  capacity  for  moral  motive  and  for 
judicial  insight,  but  he  absolutely  atmosphered 
him  with  multiform  disciplinary  influences,  and  to 
this  end  established  as  a  universal  law  of  life 
growth  from  germs  through  struggle.  As  I  have 
elsewhere,  in  a  paper  entitled  Satan  Anticipated,* 
described  at  length  the  operations  of  this  law,  I 
will  here  only  briefly  outline  the  workings  of  this 
perhaps  the  most  marvelous  and  deeply  laid  of 
all  the  plans  of  God. 

We  note  that  plant  life  has  germinal  begin- 
nings and  a  history  of  development,  and  the 
vegetative  force,  in  its  efforts  to  embody  in  ma- 
terial organic  form  the  ideal  given  it,  finds  itself 
confronted  at  every  step  of  the  way  by  per- 
sistently opposing  forces  with  which  it  has  to 
strenuously  and  successfully  contend  or  be  itself 
defeated.  It  meets  the  force  of  gravity  at  the 
very  outset  of  its  career  and  lifts  its  masses  of 
matter,  in  some  instances  amounting  to  several 
tons,  right  against  the  steady  antagonism  of 
that  force.  It  wrestles  with  the  winds  again  and 
again,  every  contest  resulting  in  tightening  its 
fibered  stem.  It  is  compelled  to  tear  asunder 
atoms  which  chemical  forces  are  holding  together 
with  all  their  might,  to  actually  drag  these  forces 
into  its  service  and  to  fight  unremittingly  their 

*  In  Views  on  Vexed  Questions. 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  29 

disintegrating  tendencies,  re-enforced  as  they 
often  are  with  the  weakening  depredations  of 
hungry  parasites,  until  worn  out  with  the 
struggle  it  at  last  succumbs  and  disappears  for- 
ever, leaving  its  palace  of  wonders  to  become 
shapeless  and  drifting  dust  again. 

Those  mysteriously  commissioned  forces  that 
build  up  and  maintain  animal  organisms  have 
closely  corresponding  battle  histories  ending  at 
last  in  corresponding  fatal  defeats.  These  his- 
tories are  made  up  of  like  rendings  asunder  of 
chemical  compounds,  impressment  into  service  of 
unwilling  chemic  forces,  fierce  fights  with  swarm- 
ing parasitic  foes,  and  at  last  the  like  endless 
leaden  sleep  of  death. 

This  was  God's  established  order  long  before 
sin  came.  Man's  moral  fall  has  unquestionably 
multiplied  diseases  and  hastened  death,  but  it 
cannot  be  charged  with  having  first  introduced 
them  to  this  sorrow-burdened  earth.  Long  be- 
fore Adam  there  were  sand  wastes  and  pitfalls 
and  cyclones  and  thunderbursts  and  poisonous 
airs  and  ravenous  beasts.  Bodies  were  made  of 
perishable  clay  and  environed  with  adverse  in- 
fluences. Life  would  have  been  a  fierce  contest 
even  if  sin  had  never  come.  Rare  indeed  are  the 
paradisiacal  spots  where  fruits  grow  with  luxur- 
iant spontaneity,  where  the  air  is  soft  and  odor- 
laden,  where  the  rays  of  the  sun  are  always  tem- 
pered and  golden  and  full  of  balm,  where  the  life 
of  the  flesh  is  a  careless,  cloudless  holiday.  Even 


30  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

if  sin  had  not  come,  disease  would  have  paled  the 
cheeks  of  loved  ones  and  home  circles  would  not 
have  been  without  some  vacant  chairs.  Anxie- 
ties, forebodings,  care-burdens,  disappointed 
hopes,  scalding  tears  would  have  been  accom- 
paniments of  human  life  even  if  that  life  had 
been  kept  pure.  This  world  as  now  constituted 
was  evidently  designed  as  a  means  not  an  end, 
as  disciplinary  and  developing,  as  a  great  train- 
ing school  for  some  higher  form  of  existence. 

If  death  ends  all,  this  present  order  of  Nature, 
however  full  of  matchless  mechanism,  of  astound- 
ing achievement,  however  stamped  with  profound- 
est  inventive  thought,  may  be  rightly  counted  a 
most  lamentable  failure;  but  if  God  designed  this 
life  and  this  world  as  means  for  developing  vir- 
tue, the  present  order  of  things  is  not  only  a 
marked  success,  but  it  takes  on  new  and  deeper 
meanings,  it  displays  on  God's  part  an  infinitely 
greater  care-taking  than  scientists  have  as  yet 
discovered  in  all  their  investigations. 

Virtue  being  beyond  the  range  of  God's  crea- 
tive power,  being  the  result  of  the  choices  of  a 
responsibly  free  will,  as  we  have  already  stated, 
God  was  necessitated  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
case  to  pass  man  through  some  probationary 
period,  make  him  amenable  to  systems  of  law, 
place  him  inside  a  body  easily  deranged,  full  of 
appetites  and  passions  and  desires,  susceptible 
of  over-indulgence,  place  him  amid  opportunities 
for  gratification  left  open  to  abuse  that  thereby 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  31 

he  might  learn  self-mastery,  amid  dangers  to 
prove  and  develop  his  courage,  amid  trials  and 
disappointments  to  test  his  fortitude,  and  objects 
of  need  to  appeal  to  his  better  sympathies,  amid 
hindrances  by  the  surmounting  of  which  to 
toughen  the  fiber  of  his  spirit,  to  make  him  nobly, 
grandly  aggressive. 

This  preparation  of  untold  centuries  to  ensure 
a  suitable  habitat  and  housing  for  human  souls, 
this  well-nigh  infinite  painstaking  and  deliberate 
incurring  of  most  fearful  risks  to  school  those 
souls  into  virtue,  give  us  some  intimation  of 
God's  high  estimate  of  the  possibilities  of  spirit- 
ual attainment  concealed  within  these  yet  closely 
folded  buds  of  promise.  When  we  contemplate 
the  great  mass  of  mankind,  study  the  dark  his- 
tory of  the  ages,  when  we  realize  to  our  thought 
how  that  myriads  in  every  generation  have  come 
and  gone  revealing  only  narrow,  sluggish,  brut- 
ish minds,  the  slaves  of  appetite,  victims  of 
multiform  tyrannizing  forces,  cowed  by  supersti- 
tious fears  and  consumed  by  greed,  we  are  apt 
in  our  haste  despairingly  to  conclude  that  the 
risks  were  too  great  and  have  proved  fatal.  But 
a  more  thoughtful  study  will  convince  us  that  the 
race  is  surely  moving  toward  light  and  love.  It 
sometimes  seems  very  strange  to  us  that  God  saw 
fit  to  wait  through  vast  geologic  periods  for  his 
delegated  mechanic  and  chemic  forces  to  convert 
a  shapeless  bank  of  cosmic  vapor  into  a  planet 
fit  for  peopling,  then  to  wait  through  other 


32  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

periods  still,  whose  lengthened  lapse  we  have  no 
means  of  measuring,  for  earth  in  its  physical  fea- 
tures and  in  its  lower  sentient  life  to  become  a 
place  habitable  to  man.  Had  he  so  chosen  he 
could  have  called  this  globe  into  being  in  all  the 
perfection  of  its  latest  age  by  the  instant  flash 
of  his  thought.  All  we  can  say  is,  he  preferred 
to  wait,  and  to  wait  long.  Think  you  his 
patience  tires  as  the  slow  centuries  of  human  prog- 
ress wear  away,  that  his  courage  fails,  that  his 
hope  is  growing  dim?  He  knows  how  long  he 
can  afford  to  wait.  A  thousand  years  in  his 
sight  are  but  as  yesterday  when  it  is  past  and 
as  a  watch  in  the  night. 

But  we  anxiously  ask  what  becomes  of  those 
countless  throngs  of  sin-distorted  souls  which 
hear  death's  summons  unprepared  and  pass  with- 
in the  shadow.  This  much  I  think  we  can  safely 
say:  not  until  God  has  fully  compassed  the  re- 
sources of  his  infinite  love  to  win  back  the  erring 
and  has  finally  lost  all  hope  of  their  return  will 
his  striving  cease  and  his  sustaining  presence  be 
withdrawn.  Yet  when  the  last  ray  of  hope  is 
quenched  in  the  great  yearning  heart  of  God, 
then,  but  not  till  then,  will  the  hardened  ingrate 
rebel  be  forever  banished  from  his  presence. 
That  men,  if  they  choose,  can,  despite  all  God's 
striving,  sink  down  to  devils  we  must  concede, 
and  also  that  at  the  last  this  appalling  fate  of 
banishment  so  long  impending,  prophesied  in  the 
immutable  laws  of  life  as  well  as  in  God's  written 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  33 

revelation,  may  become  at  last  the  dreaded  doom 
of  devils. 

But  again  we  tremblingly  inquire  what  is  to 
be  the  future  of  those  who  before  death  have  in- 
deed become  repentant  and  believing  and  had  as- 
pirations after  better  things  and  yet  have  been 
summoned  hence  while  passing  through  perhaps 
the  very  first  stages  of  moral  development,  or  at 
best  before  discipline  has  ripened  their  powers 
or  unfolded  and  confirmed  their  virtues.  It  can 
not  be  that  their  growth  is  thus  arrested  and  they 
thus  doomed  to  remain  forever  incomplete,  yet 
further  development  can  be  effected  only  under 
disciplinary  agencies  similar  to  those  now  at  work 
in  this  world. 

"Heaven  is  not  reached  at  a  single  bound; 
But  we  build  the  ladder  on  which  we  rise 
From  the  lowly  earth  to  the  vaulted  skies, 
And  we  mount  to  its  summit  round  by  round." 

Where  they  are  to  finish  their  training  is  not 
revealed,  and  it  is  of  little  moment  inasmuch  as 
the  further  atmosphering  of  these  souls  must  re- 
main essentially  the  same.  Every  human  spirit 
comes  gifted  with  a  divine  ideal  to  grow  to  and 
germinal  impulses  for  growing,  and  he  who  made 
and  gave  will  supply  the  environment  of  imple- 
ments and  influences  and  afford  the  time  requisite 
for  the  full  fashioning,  even  though  centuries  or 
millenniums  must  be  consumed  in  opening  those 
closely  folded  buds  of  promise  into  bloom.  Not 


34  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

those  who  through  life  have  been  fortune's  ap- 
parent favorites,  who  have  escaped  the  baptism 
of  fire,  who  never,  or  rarely,  have  had  their  man- 
hood tried,  should  be  tendered  our  congratula- 
tions, but  rather  those  battle-scarred  heroes  who 
have  come  up  through  much  tribulation,  for 
"whom  the  Lord  loveth  he  chasteneth,"  as  only 
such  can  yet  possibly  be  prepared  to  enter 
through  the  gates  into  the  city. 

Have  we  been  left  to  vague  conjecture  as  to 
the  nature  and  extent  of  each  spirit-germ's  Divine 
commission,  as  to  what,  if  any,  are  the  impassable 
barriers  to  its  capacities  for  growing,  or  has 
there  appeared  in  the  centuries  a  Shining  One  in 
the  serene  majesty  of  whose  perfect  consecration 
we  find  brought  out  at  last  in  its  completeness  the 
grand  ideal  God  has  set  and  made  possible  for 
each  created  soul  to  grow  to  under  the  uplifting 
power  of  his  presence?  It  is  now  universally 
conceded  that  there  has  visited  the  earth  a  per- 
sonage called  Christ,  and  that,  whatever  else  he 
was,  he  was  a  created  human  soul,  housed  in  a 
human  body,  hemmed  in  by  all  the  ordinary 
human  limitations,  and  rising  at  the  last  to  no 
greater  height  of  moral  excellence  than  is  possible 
to  be  attained  by  any  of  his  disciples.  The 
Sacred  Record  assures  us  that  he  was  tempted  in 
all  points  as  we  are.  The  same  sustaining  grace 
given  him  is  offered  us.  To  the  same  sublime 
height  of  loving  self-sacrifice  which  he  reached 
we  may  climb,  for  in  the  words  of  the  command, 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  35 

"Love  one  another  as  I  have  loved  you,"  there  is 
the  promise  of  the  power.  But  to  reach  this  full- 
ness of  Christ's  stature  will  doubtless  require  on 
the  part  of  most  a  longer  schooling  than  this 
short  life  can  give.  But  the  schooling  will  cer- 
tainly come.  Full  opportunity  will  be  afforded. 
We  are  the  sons  of  God,  joint  heirs  with  Christ. 
So  far,  then,  as  we  can  picture  in  our  thought 
this  transcendent  personage  whose  life  and  teach- 
ings have  stood  the  test  of  the  world's  keenest 
scrutiny  for  now  nearly  two  thousand  years,  so 
far  we  can  conceive  what  we,  if  lovingly  obedient, 
are,  under  the  molding  power  of  the  Divine 
Presence,  destined  to  become  at  some  time  during 
that  far-off  by  and  by.  The  day  may  be  dis- 
tant, but  it  is  coming;  the  standard  high,  but 
we  may  attain  to  it.  The  flesh  is  weak,  is  worn 
with  pain,  is  full  of  importunate  pleadings,  but 
we  may  become  its  master.  The  world  offers 
glittering  prizes,  but  we  may  overcome  the  world. 
Perils  impend,  but  leaping  thunderbolts  may 
not  swerve  us  from  our  purpose.  Calumnies 
darken  the  air,  but  with  an  all-conquering  calm 
we  can  wait  the  uncurtaining  of  God's  Tomorrow. 
When  will  the  battle  period  end?  To  one 
class,  at  the  recall  of  the  despised  gift;  to  the 
other,  at  the  perfecting  of  the  Divine  image. 
The  final  outcome  of  God's  creative  work  on  this 
planet  I  believe  will  be  a  host,  which  no  one  can 
number,  of  glorified  spirits  who  through  suffer- 
ing and  struggle  under  the  immutable  laws  of 


36  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

spiritual  growth  have  attained  unto  the  stature 
of  the  fullness  of  Christ.  Not  until  we  have  our- 
selves entered  into  the  "silent  vastnesses  of 
eternity"  can  we  form  any  adequate  conception 
of  the  glory  yet  to  be  revealed  in  this  Creation's 
Masterpiece. 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  37 


II 

I  now  call  attention  to  the  second  and  third 
divisions  of  my  theme;  whether  it  was  absolutely 
necessary  for  a  Divine  Visitant  to  come,  and 
whether  we  have  in  the  characteristics  and  career 
of  the  historic  Christ  convincing  evidences  that 
he  was  the  Messiah  foretold  by  Jewish  prophets 
and  by  the  world's  most  pressing  needs. 

Every  plant  is  an  organic  unit.  Its  parts  are 
complemental  and  are  linked  so  intimately  that 
no  one  can  be  separated  from  the  others  without 
fatal  results.  Root,  stem,  branch,  and  leaf  are 
vitally  essential,  each  to  each,  must  remain  in 
intimate  union,  and  each  play  its  part.  There 
is  a  life-current  flowing  from  the  tiniest  rootlets 
that  weave  their  network  in  the  dark  and  damp 
of  the  underworld,  to  the  veined  leaves  that  hang, 
wind-shaken  and  sun-kissed,  from  the  outermost 
branches  that  reach  toward  the  sky.  Sever  the 
connection  and  you  stop  the  flow  and  end  the 
life.  The  very  forces  which,  before  the  sever- 
ance, were  invigorating  and  developing  become 
destructive.  The  sunlight  now  scorches  and 
withers,  and  the  moisture  in  the  air  and  soil  rots 
the  plant  into  unorganized  dust  again. 

There  has  been  established  a  vital  union  be- 
tween not  only  the  different  parts  of  the  organism 


38  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

but  also  between  the  organism  and  its  environment, 
the  ingredients  of  the  soil,  the  air,  the  raindrop, 
and  the  sunbeam,  severance  here  being  attended 
with  equally  fatal  results.  The  central  germ-force 
reaches  with  vitalizing  influence  to  the  remotest 
corner  of  the  organism,  directing  where  every 
particle  of  matter  shall  go  and  precisely  what 
office  it  shall  perform  in  perfecting  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  Divine  ideal  intrusted  to  its  keeping. 
There  is  thus  an  interplay,  an  interdependence, 
binding  together  not  only  the  different  parts  of 
an  organism,  but  the  clod  of  the  valley  with  the 
cloud  of  the  sky,  even  reaching  through  space 
the  almost  inconceivable  distance  of  ninety-five 
millions  of  miles. 

A  more  perfect  and  complex  organization  may 
be  observed  in  the  higher  realm  of  animal  life. 
Not  only  is  every  body,  whether  of  mote  or 
mammoth,  an  organized  whole,  a  combination  of 
parts  by  whose  joint  action  a  certain  predeter- 
mined purpose  is  carried  out,  but  each  organ 
also  in  the  combination  is  endowed  and  commis- 
sioned and  has  significance  and  efficiency  only 
when  conjoined  with  the  others  into  one  harmo- 
nious whole.  The  human  eye,  for  example,  has 
been  found  composed  of  hundreds  of  such  com- 
plemental  parts,  some  of  the  more  noticeable 
being  a  self-adjusting  window,  carefully  curved 
and  accurately  placed  lenses,  an  elaborately  pre- 
pared plate,  susceptible  of  the  slightest  impres- 
sion, consisting  of  a  closely  woven  network  of 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  39 

the  frayed  ends  of  the  optic  nerve,  oil  and  tear 
glands,  sets  of  minute  muscles  to  roll  the  balls 
and  lift  the  lids  with  their  fringed  edges,  and 
change  the  curvature  of  the  crystalline  lens. 
These  have  evidently  been  built  with  reference 
each  to  each,  as  only  by  a  concert  of  action,  can 
they  effect  an  outlook  to  the  spirit  housed  within. 
In  this  highly  organized  body  of  ours  we  find 
the  brain  in  such  close  telegraphic  communication 
with  every  fiber  of  flesh  that  nowhere,  over  the 
wide  area  which  the  skin  covers,  can  even  the 
fine  point  of  a  cambric  needle  find  entrance  with- 
out a  message  of  warning  being  flashed  over  the 
wires  to  the  central  office.  Along  the  motor 
nerves  the  will  reaches,  with  its  mandates,  thou- 
sands of  waiting  muscles  in  that  vast  army  that 
lies  encamped  throughout  its  kingdom. 

The  vital  organs  are  also  most  closely  con- 
joined, and  are  constantly  sending  out,  along 
canals  that  ramify  everywhere,  rich  cargoes  of 
vitalized  atoms,  that,  under  the  supervision  of 
the  all-dominant  organizing  central  force,  are 
incorporated  into  muscle  and  bone,  tendon  and 
nerve-fiber,  cuticle,  cord,  cartilage,  and  brain 
tissue.  Here,  too,  break  the  union,  and  you  end 
the  life.  Any  part  of  the  body  wrenched  from 
this  quickening  contact  with  the  controlling  germ- 
power  soon  falls  a  prey  to  the  ever-waiting, 
hungry  hordes  of  chemical  forces  which  tear  it  in 
pieces  and  despoil  it  of  its  glory. 

And,  also,  between  every  animal  organism  and 


40  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

its  environment  there  must  be  maintained  an 
equally  constant  union,  or  life  will  cease.  It 
seems  to  be  the  special,  if  not  sole,  office  of  those 
marvelous  animal  instincts,  which  are  unques- 
tionably none  other  than  a  Divine  informing,  to 
promote  and  regulate  this  union  as  God  first 
planned  it. 

This  scheme  of  organization,  which  we  find  to 
prevail  thus  universally  in  these  lowest  kingdoms 
of  vegetable  and  animal  existences,  has  been  dis- 
covered to  be  equally  dominant  in  the  higher 
realms  of  self-conscious  thought  and  of  moral 
choices.  Careful  grouping  of  parts,  the  widely 
reaching  centralization  of  purpose  and  of  power, 
is  here  as  unmistakably  present  and  as  ineradi- 
cable. For  example,  our  powers  of  reasoning  and 
reflection  cannot  be  exercised  without  the  aid  of 
the  memory,  for  we  must  be  able  to  recall  and 
retain  former  conceptions  in  order  to  pass  our 
thoughts  in  review,  institute  comparisons,  draw 
inferences,  reach  conclusions;  and  for  the  ex- 
ercise of  the  memory  the  imagination  is  indispens- 
able, for  we  must  picture  whatever  past  incident 
or  idea  we  recover  to  consciousness.  The 
imagination  must  have,  as  its  ready  servitors, 
the  mind's  powers  of  association  and  suggestion, 
of  comparison  and  contrast,  and  of  memory,  for 
its  office  is  not  to  create  outright,  but  to  fashion 
new  combinations,  selecting  its  material  from 
former  perceptions  and  experiences.  Thus  the 
mind  acts  as  a  unit,  thought  being  the  result  of 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  41 

a  combined  operation  of  its  faculties.  As  the 
brain  is  the  instrument  used  in  all  thought- 
processes,  and  as  all  crude  thought-material  must 
come  through  the  five  bodily  senses,  the  union  of 
the  intellectual  world  with  the  physical  is  also 
close  and  constant,  and  the  deeply  laid  plan  of 
organization  in  the  one  leaves  its  indelible  im- 
press on  the  other,  is  fairly  inwrought  into  its 
very  structure,  so  that  the  two  may  safely  be 
considered  parts  of  a  still  wider  organization, 
all  of  whose  vast  multitude  of  members  are  in 
vital  union  with  each  other  and  with  some  central 
Over-Soul,  its  author  and  organizing  spirit. 

This  union  has  been  found  to  extend  still 
further,  linking  mind  with  mind,  each  individual 
endowment  of  personality  being  essential  to  the 
healthful  and  efficient  exercise  and  unfolding  of 
the  others,  each  having  its  peculiar  fashioning 
with  reference  to  this  world-wide  relationship. 
Here,  too,  the  penalty  of  severance  is  death. 
This  was  not  known  until  revealed  by  quite  recent 
results  of  State-prison  discipline.  Solitary  cell 
confinement  has  so  uniformly  ended  in  hopeless 
insanity  or  idiocy  that  the  authorities  have  felt 
compelled  to  abandon  this  mode  of  punishment. 
While  occasional  solitude  serves  as  a  tonic  and 
regulator,  as  a  positive  medicine  to  the  mind, 
it  will,  if  obstinately  persisted  in,  turn  into 
deadly  poison.  We  must  maintain  communica- 
tion with  the  ever-flowing  thought-currents  of 
the  world  and  of  Nature,  must  never  suffer  to 


42  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

wholly  cease  within  us  that  beat  of  pulse  which 
is  but  God's  beat  of  heart,  by  whose  mighty 
enginery  the  world's  thought-arteries  are  fed  with 
a  Divine  vitality.  This  fact  of  a  world-organism 
is  brought  out  still  further,  and  with  ever-increas- 
ing emphasis,  in  the  unmistakable  drift  of  modern 
civilization  toward  a  more  intimate  and  organized 
interplay  of  all  individual  forces  in  society  as 
may  be  noted  in  the  increased  facilities  for  travel 
and  for  interchange  of  thought,  the  multiplica- 
tion of  machinery,  closer  combinations  of  indus- 
tries, the  formation  of  great  trusts  and  co-opera- 
tive associations,  the  international  federations 
for  reform  and  for  the  forwarding  of  the  re- 
searches of  science.  The  Duke  of  Argyll,  in  his 
Reign  of  Law,  but  more  recently  in  his  work  on 
The  Unity  of  Nature,  has  presented  certain 
phases  of  it  with  great  learning  and  force. 
Walter  Bagehot  has  attempted  to  show  the  ex- 
tension of  natural  law  to  the  political  world; 
Herbert  Spencer,  its  application  to  the  social; 
and  Prof.  Henry  Drummond,  its  reaching  up 
even  into  the  spiritual  life  of  the  soul. 

The  fact  that  we  are  parts  of  one  vast,  closely 
linked  organism  in  our  intellectual  as  well  as  our 
physical  nature  is  again  made  evident  whenever 
we  attempt  to  develop  any  theme  of  thought. 
We  work  most  effectively  when  we  place  ourselves 
as  far  as  we  can  in  a  receptive  frame,  freeing  our 
minds  from  all  trammels  of  passion  and  precon- 
ceived opinion,  being  resolved  to  know  only  the 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  43 

truth  and  fearlessly  to  state  and  stand  by  it, 
then  inform  ourselves  as  to  all  discovered  perti- 
nent facts,  institute  original  investigations  when 
possible,  search  through  Nature,  among  the 
world's  libraries,  its  customs,  industries,  its  re- 
ligions, political  and  social  institutions,  its  ex- 
hibits of  art,  all  the  multiform  phenomena  of  its 
ever-varying  life,  and  after  having  thus  thrown 
open  every  avenue  of  approach,  place  ourselves 
in  closest  vital  union  with  the  thought-movements 
of  the  planet  and  through  them  with  the  God 
of  the  planet,  the  great  central  thought-source, 
and  having  thus  become  fairly  alive  with  our 
theme,  quickened  and  filled,  we  hold  our  attention 
unswervingly  to  the  subject  of  our  purposed  con- 
templation, and  suffer  our  mental  faculties  to 
evolve  their  thought-products  according  to  the 
methods  predetermined  by  their  Creator.  Our 
minds  are,  we  shall  find,  most  consummately  con- 
structed pieces  of  mechanism,  with  most  com- 
plicated yet  most  nicely  adjusted  parts,  working 
with  as  perfect  regularity  as  characterizes  the 
processes  of  vegetable  or  animal  growths.  All 
we  have  to  do, — all,  in  fact,  we  can  do — ,  is  to 
provide  them  with  this  fitting  environment,  this 
proper  spiritual  sustenance,  and  then  hold  fast 
the  attention.  God  does  the  rest,  we  know  not 
how.  The  mystery  is  as  profound  as  that  which 
envelops  the  unfolding  of  an  acorn  into  a  thou- 
sand-armed, million-leafed  oak,  or  of  the  ap- 
parently structureless  white  of  an  egg  into  a 


44  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

plumed  songster.  The  environment  is  instinct 
with  Divine  life;  the  constructive  mental  germ- 
force  is  the  product  of  a  Divine  quickening;  the 
processes  have  been  determined  by  a  Divine  or- 
der. To  us  is  intrusted  simply  the  choosing  of 
the  departments  of  thought  in  which  they  shall 
work  their  wonders.  It  is  impossible  for  us  to 
stop  the  unfolding  of  thought  or  to  change  the 
laws  of  the  unfolding.  We  simply  have  directive 
power,  and  power  to  throw  wide  open  all  mental 
avenues,  and  keep  up  all  necessary  vital  unions 
with  this  vast  world-organism,  of  which  we  form 
part.  We  plant,  we  water,  but  God  gives  the 
increase.  Thoughts  spring  up  into  conscious- 
ness, and  unfold  finally  into  flower  and  fruit,  in 
strict  conformity  to  methods  and  models  devised 
in  the  inscrutable  councils  of  the  Almighty.  As 
spiritual  chemists  we  may  exercise  a  choice  as 
to  the  ingredients  of  the  solution,  but  along  what 
lines  of  symmetry  the  precipitated  thoughts  shall 
arrange  themselves  will  depend  on  pre-established 
laws  of  crystallization,  in  determining  which  we 
are  permitted  to  take  no  part.  Or  as  spiritual 
gardeners,  we  may  enrich  and  moisten  the  soil  of 
the  mind,  and  select  and  sow  the  seed ;  but  with 
that  our  work  ends,  and  God's  begins. 

Dr.  Carpenter  cites  a  fact  that  happily  illus- 
trates the  automatic,  unconscious  action  of  the 
mind.  An  eminent  mathematician  one  evening 
toilfully  attempted  the  solution  of  a  long  and 
intricate  problem,  without  success.  He  retired 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  45 

and  after  a  while  fell  asleep.  In  the  middle  of 
the  night  his  wife  was  awakened  by  his  leaving 
his  bed.  She  watched,  but  said  nothing.  He 
went  to  his  study  table  and  busied  himself  for  a 
time  with  his  papers,  and  then  returned.  The 
next  morning,  when  about  to  resume  his  studies, 
he  found  to  his  astonishment  all  the  mysteries  of 
his  vexed  problem  unraveled  in  plain  figures  on 
the  sheet  before  him,  and  to  his  greater  astonish- 
ment he  found,  on  inquiry,  that  he  himself  had, 
in  the  unconscious  hours  of  sleep,  accomplished 
what,  while  he  was  wide  awake,  had  baffled  his 
utmost  endeavors. 

I  have  often  availed  myself  of  this  most  mar- 
velous property  of  the  mind  by  presenting  to  it 
whatever  subject  perplexed  me  and  eluded  my 
grasp  in  as  clear  and  forcible  a  light  as  lay  in 
my  power,  and  then  deliberately  turning  my  at- 
tention elsewhere  with  the  intent,  after  an  in- 
terval had  elapsed,  of  again  calling  up  the  ques- 
tion. I  have  almost  invariably  found  that  the 
mind  has,  without  any  conscious  effort  on  my 
part,  in  some  secret  and  silent  way,  with  clarified 
vision  and  unwonted  concentrative  energy,  per- 
formed most  difficult  tasks  without  any  discover- 
able fatigue  or  friction.  There  is  rarely  a  per- 
son that  has  not  had  frequent  and  pleasant  sur- 
prises of  this  sort.  They  are  genuine  surprises 
to  most,  because  the  existence  of  these  mental 
laws  is  not  generally  known,  and  a  deliberate  at- 
tempt to  thus  turn  them  to  account  is  a  rare  oc- 


46  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

currence.  People  generally  puzzle  and  study 
until,  in  a  fit  of  discouragement  or  pressed  by 
other  cares,  they  toss  the  themes  aside,  only  to 
find  afterward,  upon  some  chance  recurrence,  the 
much-coveted  prizes  fairly  thrust  upon  them, 
coming  out  of  their  hiding  places  like  sudden 
flashes  of  intuition,  though  unquestionably  they 
are  the  result  of  long  processes  of  unconscious 
ratiocination. 

On  one  occasion  I  had  revealed  to  me  with 
what  lightning  speed  the  mind  works  when  thus 
left  untrammeled  in  its  organic  action.  I  had 
made  quite  laborious  preparation  to  write  a  char- 
acter-analysis of  a  certain  literary  celebrity.  I 
had  read  what  I  could  find  on  the  subject  and  had 
taken  quite  extensive  notes  of  facts  and 
suggestions.  I  had  also  jotted  down  what- 
ever had  come  up  in  my  own  reflections, 
from  time  to  time,  without  regard  to  or- 
der, without  any  plan  of  treatment.  After  I 
had  thus  gathered  my  material  I  set  my- 
self to  the  task  of  evolving  order  out  of  this  wild 
chaos.  After  long  study  I  could  discover  only 
one  line  of  treatment  that  to  me  seemed  at  all 
possible,  and  still  with  that  I  was  quite  dissatis- 
fied. I  finally  shut  my  desk,  heartily  discouraged, 
and  began  some  vigorous  manual  exercise,  leaving 
my  mind  seemingly  in  a  state  of  vacuity,  of  ab- 
solute rest.  To  my  utter  astonishment  and  de- 
light, while  still  swinging  my  axe,  a  hitherto  en- 
tirely unthought-of  plan  flashed  upon  me.  It 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  47 

came  wholly  unbidden,  for  I  had  not  then  learned 
of  this  unconscious  automatic  mental  action. 
The  plan  proved  to  be  precisely  what  I  needed. 

I  have  had  recourse  frequently  to  the  same 
methods,  when  desirous  of  recalling  any  past 
thing  or  thought. 

The  fact  of  our  being  parts  of  a  wide-reach- 
ing organism  again  becomes  manifest  when  per- 
sons of  reflective,  studious  habits  have  taken  a 
careful  review  of  their  thought-history,  for  they 
find  that  it  possesses  a  very  noticeable  symmetry 
and  system,  and  that  too  without  any  conscious 
purposing  on  their  part.  The  mind  when  left 
free  to  work  naturally  and  healthily  will  fall  into 
methods  which  are  the  outgrowth  of  its  peculiar 
organic  structure,  its  environment  being  as- 
similated and  transformed  into  it. 

An  analysis  of  the  works  of  great  literary 
geniuses  will  confirm  this  statement.  The  minds 
that  are  the  most  gifted  will  be  found  to  be  those 
of  greatest  intuitive  power,  in  closest  sympathetic 
communication  with  Nature  and  the  great  throb- 
bing intellectual  life  of  the  world;  those  that  are 
characterized  most  by  this  unconscious  action, 
and  untrammeled  by  conventionalisms,  and 
unawed  by  public  opinion ;  that  stand  loyal  to 
their  own  individuality,  and  independently  assert 
what  they  candidly  believe  to  be  true.  Such  are 
pre-eminently  Divinely  led,  because  they  im- 
plicitly trust  in  and  follow  the  promptings  of  a 
nature  Divinely  bestowed.  They  may  not  be  de- 


48  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

vout,  may  not  design  to  be  under  Divine  leader- 
ship or  realize  that  they  are.  They  are  simply 
healthily  self-reliant  and  self-asserting,  candid, 
impressionable,  assimilative.  They  are  some- 
thing more  than  echoes  of  their  age,  for  their 
large  susceptibility  is  accompanied  with  equally 
large  assimilative  capacity,  and  their  strong  na- 
tures vitalize  and  transmute  their  intellectual 
environment  into  finer  forms  of  spiritual  essence, 
into  their  own  unique  personality.  But  this 
transmutation  is  wholly  an  unconscious  process, 
under  the  conduct  of  Divine  methods  and  in- 
strumentalities. They  simply  follow  out  the 
promptings  of  their  instinctive  impulses,  or,  as 
we  are  wont  to  phrase  it,  follow  the  bent  of  their 
own  genius. 

Shakespeare  is  a  notable  illustration  of  this. 
It  is  universally  conceded  that  his  was  one  of  the 
most  original,  creative  minds  ever  placed  on  this 
planet.  Yet  he  so  little  realized  his  peerless  pow- 
ers that  he  used  them  simply  for  purposes  of  live- 
lihood, and  when  a  competence  was  secured  he  left 
the  London  playhouses,  retired  to  his  estate  at 
Stratford-on-Avon,  and  was  so  unconcerned  about 
his  fame,  so  careless  of  his  manuscripts,  that  he 
left  them  scattered  about  the  theaters,  and  it  was 
not  till  some  time  after  his  death  that  two  appre- 
ciative friends  collected  what  of  them  they  could 
find  and  identify,  and  handed  them  over  to  liter- 
ary immortality,  to  be  the  delight  and  wonder  of 
all  nations  in  all  succeeding  centuries.  He  was 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  49 

not  a  product  of  the  schools,  yet  he  seems  to  have 
been  wonderfully  conversant  with  literature  and 
with  the  living  thought  of  his  age,  so  great  were 
his  absorbent  powers.  His  conceptions  took  on 
dramatic  form,  for  that  was  the  one  then  gener- 
ally prevailing.  He  was  the  glory,  the  consum- 
mate flower,  of  the  Elizabethan  era,  his  pages 
glowing  with  the  enthusiasm  of  its  literary  renas- 
cence, with  its  bright  awakening  from  the  dark- 
ness and  thrall  with  which  the  bigotry  of  the 
Romish  Church  had  cursed  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
Bible  had  under  Henry  VIII  been  unchained,  and 
the  world's  rich  stores  of  classic  learning  broken 
open  and  again  made  free  to  all.  He  drank  in 
the  spirit  of  his  time  as  naturally  and  freely  as 
his  lungs  filled  with  the  air  about  him.  This 
quickened  spiritual  pulse  of  old  England  beat 
strong  and  full  in  Shakespeare's  veins.  The 
breadth  of  his  knowledge,  the  depth  of  his  in- 
sight, the  intuitional  quickness  of  his  perceptions, 
the  exuberance  of  his  fancy,  were  excelled  only  by 
the  outspoken,  unstudied  naturalness  with  which 
his  thoughts  burst  into  bloom  and  filled  the  world 
with  their  fragrance.  He  surely  had  no  purpose 
of  building  up  a  system  of  philosophy;  he  never 
dreamed  that  his  dramas  had  any  connection  with 
each  other,  yet  a  keen  critic  of  to-day  has  shown 
us  that  they  are  actually  bound  together  in  close 
organic  union,  that  Shakespeare  "builded  better 
than  he  knew,"  was  as  profound  a  philosopher  as 
he  was  a  gifted  poet.  I  once  expressed  to  this 


50  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

commentator  great  incredulity  as  to  the  sound- 
ness of  his  interpretation,  remarking  that  he  had 
seemingly  injected  into  these  writings  his  own 
thought-life,  had  displayed  his  own  fertility  of  in- 
vention, but  he  stoutly  contended,  and,  I  found 
after  more  careful  reflection,  contended  with 
good  reason,  that  Shakespeare  did  actually, 
though  unconsciously,  construct  and  illustrate  a 
most  profound  system  of  philosophy ;  that  his 
dramas,  so  far  from  standing  alone  as  utterances 
of  wholly  disassociated  moods,  were  complemental 
parts  of  one  grand  organum. 

This  writer  told  me  further  that  he  believed  he 
had  discovered  a  still  wider  generalization,  and 
had  nearly  ready  for  the  press  an  extensive  work, 
reaching  through  seven  or  eight  volumes,  on  "The 
Four  Literary  Gospels,"  in  which  he  maintains 
that  Homer,  Dante,  Shakespeare,  and  Goethe,  the 
great  apostles  of  the  world's  literature,  have  em- 
bodied in  their  productions  the  four  great  stages 
of  the  world's  intellectual  evolution,  and  should 
be  considered  together  as  component  parts  of  one 
vast  world-system  of  thought — so  vast  that  long 
centuries  of  world  history  have  been  required  for 
its  full  unfolding  and  embodiment. 

Do  we  not  see  here  the  stately  steppings  of  Di- 
vinity? Is  there  not  here  all  the  consummate 
regularity  of  organic  action,  all  the  oneness  of 
plan  we  note  in  the  unfolding  through  time  of  an 
amorphic  bank  of  cosmic  vapor  into  a  peopled 
planet? 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  51 

If  we  extend  our  inquiries  into  the  phenomena 
of  spiritual  life,  we  shall  also  find  evidences  every- 
where of  this  same  most  thorough  organization, 
the  different  parts  constructed  with  a  view  to  con- 
cert of  action,  under  the  directive  control  of  some 
central  organizing  power  with  which  they  are  all 
vitally  joined.  The  most  cursory  glance  will  re- 
veal that  our  spiritual  experiences  are  but  the 
outgrowth  of  our  multiform  and  intimate  rela- 
tionships. Indeed,  it  seems  that  it  was  for  just 
such  glorious  consummation  of  moral  character, 
of  healthful  individuality,  that  all  this  marvelous 
system  within  system  was  at  the  first  devised. 

On  close  inspection  it  will  be  found  that  all  the 
virtues  are  but  the  protean  forms  of  a  single  at- 
titude of  the  soul,  that  of  self-forgetting  sym- 
pathy. It  is  this  which,  as  I  have  shown  else- 
where, knits  together  friends,  endears  home  cir- 
cles, incites  philanthropy,  fires  the  breasts  of  pa- 
triots, and  consecrates  the  Cross. 

When  this  feeling  prevails  a  unity  of  purpose 
binds  together  the  widest  diversities  of  gifts. 
Friends  find  themselves  halves  of  one  whole,  and 
become  mutually  helpful,  supplying  by  their  com- 
plemental  parts  each  other's  lack,  inspiriting  and 
consecrating  each  other's  efforts  and  aspirations. 
Souls  in  an  environment  of  unselfish  love  flow  to- 
gether in  obedience  to  laws  of  spiritual  affinity  as 
exact  and  inexorable  as  those  which  control  in  the 
chemical  unions  which  are  effected  in  Nature's 
laboratory.  The  differently  endowed  and  tern- 


52  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

pered  members  of  a  household,  being  once  imbued 
with  this  spirit,  find  their  place  as  readily  and  in- 
evitably as  do  the  crystallizing  particles  of  some 
solution.  Led  by  a  central  organizing  force,  they 
follow  lines  of  social  and  spiritual  symmetry  as 
mathematically  exact  and  as  Divinely  predeter- 
mined as  those  which  fix  the  contours  of  crystals. 
They  soon  discover  that  they  are  as  vitally  joined 
to  each  other,  and  to  some  central  directing 
power,  as  are  the  parts  of  a  plant  or  the  mem- 
bers of  an  intricately  constructed  animal  organ- 
ism. Families  are  combined  into  communities, 
and  communities  into  commonwealths,  in  unsus- 
pecting obedience  to  similar  laws  of  Divine  order. 
Just  so  soon  as  this  vital  love-union  ceases,  the 
several  souls  sink  into  spiritual  disintegration  and 
death.  As  diseases  of  the  body  mark  a  partial 
severance,  so  petty  jealousies  and  heartburns  and 
pride,  the  changing  of  generous  emulations  into 
covert,  selfish  ambitions,  outcroppings  of  sharp 
criticisms,  a  spirit  of  greed,  a  love  of  display — all 
indicate  a  partial  severance,  a  process  of  devitali- 
zation  which,  unless  arrested,  will  end  in  death. 
So  many  of  earth's  friendships,  family  circles, 
and  commonwealths  have  fallen  prey  to  these  dis- 
integrating forces  of  selfishness  that  we  cannot 
turn  our  eyes  to  any  age  or  clime  without  finding 
the  plains  strewn  thick  with  their  bleaching  skele- 
tons. The  truth  that  voluntary,  unsympathetic 
isolation,  even  under  the  most  favorable  circum- 
stances, will  uniformly  end  in  lamentable  spiritual 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  53 

disaster,  has  been  proclaimed  in  burning  words  by 
Tennyson  in  his  "Palace  of  Art."  To  illustrate 
and  enforce  it,  this  foremost  poet  of  the  age 
placed  under  tribute  his  finest  pictorial  power. 
He  built  for  the  hermit's  soul  a  lordly  pleasure- 
house,  looking  out  on  a  landscape  full  of  most  en- 
trancing beauty,  looking  in  on  open  courts,  where 
fountains  leaped  and  murmured,  with  walls  hung 
with  speaking  canvas  fit  for  every  mood  and 
change  of  thought,  with  marble-carved  forms  of 
angels  far  overhead  among  its  spanning  arches, 
with  rich  mosaics  underfoot  choicely  planned  into 
suggestive  pictures  of  the  past,  with  apartments 
redolent  with  rarest  perfumes  and  echoing  with 
silver  notes  of  self-swung  bells.  Here  for  three 
years,  with  every  bodily  want,  every  aesthetic  crav- 
ing, satisfied,  away  from  the  turmoils  and  troubles 
of  earthly  human  life,  this  seemingly  highly  fa- 
vored soul  throve  and  prospered  in  her  isolation. 
But 

"     .     .     .     .     on  the  fourth  she  fell, 
Like  Herod,  when  the  shout  was  in  his  ears, 
Struck  thro*  with  pangs  of  hell. 

"Lest  she  should  fail  and  perish  utterly, 

God,  before  whom  ever  lie  bare 

The  abysmal  depths  of  Personality, 

Plagued  her  with  sore  despair. 

"When  she  would  think,  where'er  she  turned  her  sight, 

The  airy  hand  confusion  wrought, 
Wrote  'Mene,  mene,'  and  divided  quite 
The  Kingdom  of  her  thought. 


54  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

"Deep  dread  and  loathing  of  her  solitude 
Fell  on  her." 

From  out  dark  corners  in  her  palace-home 
phantoms  glared,  nightmare  shapes  appeared,  and 
blackened  corpses.  She  seemed  to  herself  shut  up 
as  in  a  crumbling  tomb.  At  last 

"She  threw  her  royal  robes  away, 

'Make  me  a  cottage  in  the  vale/  she  said, 
'Where  I  may  mourn  and  pray/  " 

With  this  vital,  sympathetic  touch  with  our  fel- 
lows— without  which  we  can  do  nothing,  enjoy  no 
spiritual  health,  make  no  spiritual  progress — 
there  at  once  becomes  operative  the  law  of  spirit- 
ual assimilation,  which  has  the  same  Divine  ori- 
gin, and  is  as  inexorable,  as  the  laws  that  control 
in  chemical  combinations  of  affinitive  molecules. 
Companions  whose  inner  spiritual  lives  commin- 
gle, inevitably  grow  into  each  other's  likeness,  the 
stronger  nature  producing  the  deeper,  more  last- 
ing spiritual  impressment. 

There  is  no  influence  in  the  world  that  will  at 
all  compare  in  potency  with  this  of  personal 
presence.  Indeed,  all  others  combined  are  out- 
weighed by  it.  Every  soul  which  secures  to  it- 
self spiritual  vigor  and  enlargement  will  be  found 
to  be  intimately  linked  with  stronger  and  nobler 
natures,  out  from  which  course  currents  of  irre- 
sistible, vitalizing  power.  From  our  cradles,  by 
the  very  instincts  of  our  being,  we  become  hero- 
worshippers,  and  our  hearts'  heroes  are  the 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  55 

molders  and  masters  of  our  hearts.  Some  per- 
sonal presence,  then,  without  and  above  humanity, 
must  be  in  vital  contact  with  it,  to  insure  to  the 
world  permanent  moral  elevation.  A  chain  of  in- 
fluences must  reach  up  to  God's  throne.  Other- 
wise, by  this  very  spiritual  law  we  have  an- 
nounced, the  whole  race  would  soon  sink  into  a 
state  of  spiritual  equilibrium,  the  lowest  and  the 
highest  finally  meeting  on  a  common  level. 
Whatever  of  spiritual  life  the  world  possesses  to- 
day must  have  come  originally  from  this  Divine 
source,  and  human  companionships  have  been  but 
channels  of  its  dissemination.  The  fact  that  the 
human  race  has  made  moral  progress  through  the 
centuries  can  be  explained  only  on  the  ground 
that  it  has  been  blessed  with  Divine  companion- 
ship. That  it  has  not  made  far  greater  progress 
is  clearly  chargeable  to  a  voluntary  failure  fully 
to  avail  itself  of  this  most  inestimable  privilege. 
Spiritual  deterioration  in  individual  lives  because 
of  this  withdrawal  from  God's  proffered  presence 
is,  alas !  too  frequent  to  require  any  confirmation. 
Not  a  single  instance  can  be  cited,  either  in  indi- 
vidual or  national  history,  of  the  developing  of 
the  supposed  inherent  promise  and  potency  of 
spiritual  life  without  this  Divine  environment. 
The  Duke  of  Argyll  has,  in  his  "Primeval  Man," 
challenged  evolutionists  to  prove  that  any  people 
has  ever  risen  out  of  savagery  into  civilization 
without  being  incited  and  helped  to  it  by  influ- 
ences from  without. 


56  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

To  develop  the  Godlikeness  in  human  souls 
through  this  very  law  of  spiritualization,  what 
more  effective  way  could  be  devised  than  to  have 
a  man  in  a  most  intimate  relationship  with  the  Di- 
vine Spirit  enter  human  history?  To  bring  the 
Divine  Heart  into  closer  sympathetic  relation 
with  men,  to  present  incontestable  evidences  of 
God's  loving  estimate  of  man's  infinite  possibili- 
ties, of  his  longing  to  enter  into  closer  intimacy 
with  these  his  cherished  children,  an  Imrnanual 
must  come,  and  by  thus  transfusing  his  own  spirit 
he  would  transform  theirs.  As  soon  as  they  per- 
mit his  tears  and  smiles  to  mingle  with  theirs, 
clasp  his  hand  of  friendly  greeting,  open  with  glad 
welcome  the  door  of  their  hearts  as  he  stands 
waiting,  look  into  his  face  radiant  with  a  self- 
forgetting  love,  listen  to  his  voice  as,  in  tones  as 
gentle  and  winning  as  a  mother's,  it  asks,  as  it 
speaks  their  name,  "Lovest  thou  me?" — then,  but 
not  till  then,  will  their  spirits  begin  to  thrill  with 
that  Divine  vitality  that  has  in  it  the  power  of 
an  endless  life. 

Thus  we  can  see  how  firmly  based  on  the  deep 
principles  of  this  world-organism  would  be  his 
warning  that  without  him  we  can  do  nothing,  as 
also  his  promise  that  with  him  we  can  do  all 
things,  that  he  is  the  vine  and  we  the  branches, 
and  that  we  must  abide  in  him  if  we  would  have 
life  and  bear  fruit.  These  utterances  of  the  his- 
toric Christ  were  bold  and  startling.  If  he  did  not 
regard  his  human  spirit  as  intimately  linked  with 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  57 

the  Divine  they  were  blasphemous ;  if  he  did,  then 
profoundly  true,  for  under  this  law  of  spiritual 
assimilation  no  spiritual  blessing  within  the  range 
of  our  asking  lies  without  the  reach  of  his  giving. 
Even  the  feeblest  and  least  gifted  rise,  under  the 
influences  of  such  a  companionship,  into  the  full- 
ness of  his  stature. 

This  statement  is  so  astounding  that  it  is  diffi- 
cult, well-nigh  impossible,  for  us  to  realize  or 
credit  it;  but  we  shall  find  ourselves  wonderfully 
reassured  if  we  note  the  well-nigh  limitless  capac- 
ity for  being  uplifted  possessed  by  everything  God 
has  made,  and  the  power  to  uplift  bestowed  upon 
the  various  forces  he  has  commissioned  to  bring 
finally  into  full  perfection  the  embodiment 
of  his  creative  thought.  In  an  Oriental  proverb 
we  find  the  conception  of  this  Divine  plan 
crystallized  into  a  gem  worthy  to  be  worn  in  the 
crown  of  our  rejoicing:  "I  was  but  common  clay 
till  roses  were  planted  in  me."  Into  this  sentence 
is  compressed  the  profoundest  philosophy  of  all 
the  ages.  We  may  use  it  as  a  Rosetta  Stone  to 
decipher  the  many  mysterious  hieroglyphs  written 
on  the  world's  walls  by  the  finger  of  God.  I  still 
watch  with  wonderment  and  awe  the  unfolding 
phenomena  of  the  vegetable  world.  These  tiny 
architectural  artists  of  Nature  are  enveloped  in 
such  unfathomable  mystery.  Their  mantles  of 
invisibility  are  never  unclasped.  Their  deft  fin- 
gers move  as  noiselessly  as  sunbeams.  Their  lips 
are  as  mute  as  the  lips  of  the  dead.  Yet  without 


58  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

confusion,  without  hesitancy,  without  mistake, 
they  transform  amorphic  matter  into  symmetries 
and  tints  and  flavors  and  perfumes  that  become  to 
us  speaking  symbols  of  God's  love.  Out  from  the 
foul  stagnancy  of  the  marsh  a  lily  lifts  its  pure 
white  lips  to  receive  the  kisses  of  the  sun.  What 
delicacy  of  fragrance,  grace  of  form,  charm  of 
color,  fineness  of  texture,  marvelous  etherealiza- 
tion  of  gross  substances,  evidencing  the  well-nigh 
limitless  uplifting  power  of  this  Divinely  commis- 
sioned germ-fairy  that  has  been  sent  into  this 
most  unpromising  part  of  God's  kingdom !  Simi- 
lar miracle  workings  fill  the  earth ;  indeed,  as  the 
modern  microscope  discloses,  the  capacities  of 
matter  for  refinement  are  practically  infinite. 

Animal  germs  take  these  same  gross  elements 
after  they  have  been  thus  uplifted  by  the  vege- 
table, and  carry  them  still  higher,  even  to  the  very 
border-land  of  spirits,  weaving  them  at  last  into 
a  veil  of  so  ethereal  a  texture  that  sometimes,  in 
privileged  moments,  we  catch  glimpses  through  it, 
we  are  well-nigh  persuaded,  of  the  spirits  them- 
selves of  our  loved  ones,  for  the  human  face  at 
times  seems  not  only  to  reflect,  in  its  mobile  fea- 
tures, changing  colors,  flitting  lights  and  shad- 
ows, the  thought-life  within,  but  to  be  suffused 
with  some  strange  preternatural  radiance,  that 
suggests  the  outshining  of  the  glory  tints  of  the 
soul,  of  the  halo  of  its  very  essence. 

So  universally  prevalent  throughout  Nature  are 
these  displays  of  matter's  capacity  for  being  up- 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  59 

lifted  that  only  those  peculiarly  gifted  with  po- 
etic perennial  freshness  of  thought  and  reverent 
interpretative  insight  are  properly  impressed  with 
the  deep  significance  of  promise  and  of  prophecy 
they  possess  for  every  one  of  us. 

We  are  taught,  not  only  thus  by  the  marvelous 
movements  of  life  below  us,  but  by  the  whole 
course  of  life  about  us,  forming  the  incidents  of 
the  world's  individual  and  national  histories,  that 
if  we  come  into  vital  union  with  spirits  superior, 
live  in  their  personal  presence,  thrill  to  their  talis- 
manic  touch,  bask  in  the  sunshine  of  their  sym- 
pathy, we  shall  grow  into  spiritual  exaltations  of 
purpose  that  will  eventually  ripen  into  permanent 
traits  of  character  of  whose  possibility  of  develop- 
ment we  before  had  never  dreamed.  Let  the  seed 
of  Christ's  Divine  love  be  planted  within  us,  and 
the  common  clay  of  our  natures,  that  would  have 
forever  remained  but  common  clay  were  it  not  for 
this  union,  will  under  its  magical  power  be  uplifted 
and  transformed  into  roses  whose  graces  of  form, 
of  tint,  and  of  perfume  will  win  for  us  by  and  by 
glad  welcome  into  the  Paradise  of  God. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  advent  of  just  such  a  per- 
sonage as  the  Christ  of  the  Gospels  was  absolutely 
essential  to  consummate  the  plan  of  organization 
Divinely  purposed  from  the  beginning;  that  just 
such  a  spiritually  vitalizing  influence  was  needed 
to  be  infused  into  individual  experiences  to  pre- 
vent the  whole  fabric,  so  elaborately  built  through 
the  long  centuries,  from  falling  into  wreck.  This 


60  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

unmistakable  necessity  for  the  coming  of  Christ, 
living  such  a  life  of  loving  self-sacrifice,  making 
such  a  revelation  of  the  yearning  sympathy  of 
the  Divine  Heart,  coming  into  such  vital  union 
with  waiting  souls,  contains  in  itself  the  sure 
promise  of  his  coming,  and  testifies  that  the  his- 
toric Christ  is  the  veritable  Christ  of  prophecy. 

The  necessity  which  scientific  inquiry  has  dis- 
closed of  this  quickening  touch  to  thus  complete 
God's  vast  plan  of  world-organism  reveals  to  us 
Christ's  place  in  Nature.  It  was  not  that  his  sac- 
rifice was  essential  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  a 
broken  law,  to  pay  its  penalty  so  as  to  render 
possible  and  safe  God's  forgiveness  and  man's  re- 
instatement,— such  a  thought  finding  no  warrant, 
so  far  as  I  can  see,  either  in  science  or  sound  phi- 
losophy,— but  to  work  such  change  in  human 
hearts,  exert  over  them  such  ennobling  influences, 
reach  out  with  such  tender,  life-giving  sympathies, 
as  to  win  men  back  to  loving  obedience,  and  thus 
fit  them  for  the  forgiveness  God  is  ever  anxiously 
waiting  to  bestow  upon  the  repentant  and  believ- 
ing. 

Science  in  thus  discovering  the  indispensable 
need  of  such  a  work  witnesses  to  the  reasonable- 
ness of  the  Christian's  faith  in  an  exceptionally 
intimate  union  of  Christ's  spirit  with  the  Divine. 

A  half-century  ago  Doctor  Horace  Bushnell 
with  most  elaborate  and  profound  argument 
sought  thus  to  interpret  Christ's  mission  and  to 
show  how  the  whole  trend  of  Scripture  teaching, 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  61 

once  rightly  understood,  would  be  found  to  sus- 
tain such  a  view  however  widely  it  differed  from 
the  accepted  creed  of  Christendom.  Though 
strikingly  correct  as  to  his  conclusions,  however 
imperfect  and  involved  at  times  the  course  of  rea- 
soning by  which  they  were  reached,  and  though 
strikingly  in  consonance  with  sound  judgment  and 
our  innate  sense  of  justice,  the  Doctor,  instead  of 
winning  wide  sympathetic  assent,  raised  such  a 
storm  of  denunciatory  criticism  for  presuming  to 
attack  the  supposed  citadel  of  Christian  faith  he 
barely  escaped  being  driven  from  the  pulpit  for 
rank  heresy,  and  nowhere  to  this  late  day  among 
the  many  promulgated  articles  of  Christian  doc- 
trine can  any  trace  be  found  of  the  Bushnell  in- 
novation. 

The  Greek  Church  affirms  that  "Christ  has 
done  and  suffered  in  our  stead  all  that  was  neces- 
sary for  the  remission  of  our  sins";  while  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  takes  the  same  stand,  an- 
nouncing that  "it  was  a  sacrifice  most  acceptable 
unto  God  offered  by  his  Son  on  the  altar  of  the 
Cross  which  entirely  appeased  the  wrath  and  in- 
dignation of  the  Father";  and  in  the  Westmin- 
ster Confession  we  find  reiterated  this  identical 
concept  in  the  words,  "The  Lord  Jesus  by  his  per- 
fect obedience  and  sacrifice  of  himself  hath  fully 
satisfied  the  justice  of  his  Father  and  has  pur- 
chased reconciliation  and  entrance  into  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven  for  all  whom  his  Father  hath  given 
him." 


62  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

Doctor  McConnell,  an  eminent  Episcopalian 
divine,  in  a  very  recent  work,  gives  practically 
the  same  interpretation  of  Christ's  mission  that 
Doctor  Bushnell  did,  though  he  arrives  at  his  con- 
clusion by  an  entirely  different  method. 

In  remarking  as  to  the  common  creed  of  the 
churches  he  says,  "The  suggestion  that  the  parent 
would  slay  the  child  to  regain  his  own  peace  and 
to  safeguard  his  own  justice  is  one  so  wildly  ir- 
rational that  one  can  only  stand  amazed  when  he 
confronts  it  in  theologic  guise." 

Underlying  all  the  variant  views  of  the  differ- 
ent Christian  sects  there  is  to  be  found  "this  fun- 
damental belief  that  Christ  was  a  sacrifice  offered 
to  appease  an  incensed  Judge,  and  that  it  has  been 
so  far  efficacious  that  it  has  left  God  with  no  valid 
claim  against  any  man  who  takes  the  proper 
steps  to  interpose  this  safeguard  between  the  im- 
pending judgment  and  himself.  Propitiation  of 
God  by  sacrifice  and  the  transference  of  right- 
eousness from  the  innocent  to  the  guilty  are  of 
its  very  essence,  and  they  are  both  but  survivals 
of  an  ancient  blind  paganism."  The  present 
widespread  decline  and  apathy  of  the  churches, 
the  alarming  defection  among  thoughtful  inquir- 
ers, they  either  silently  withdrawing  or  else  keep- 
ing aloof  from  fellowship,  he  attributes  to  this 
still  holding  fast  on  the  part  of  the  churches  to 
the  old-time  dogma  of  propitiatory  sacrifice.  He 
thinks  that  the  Church  is  now  passing  through  a 
most  grave  crisis,  that  the  old  creeds  are  no 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  63 

longer  binding  and  in  many  particulars  have 
been  outgrown,  that  the  educated  and  reflective 
do  not  care  to  be  compromised  by  appearing  to 
endorse  what  they  no  longer  hold  true.  He 
points  out  that  the  Mosaic  and  Levitical  codes 
were  designed  not  so  much  to  foster  as  to  limit  as 
far  as  that  rude  age  would  permit,  and  eventually 
to  eliminate,  the  still  prevailing  pagan  notion  of 
a  necessary  sacrificial  offering  to  placate  an  an- 
gry God.  He  declares  that  "the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  construed  Christ's  mission  in  terms  of 
Hebrew  sacrifice  and  that  St.  Paul's  teachings 
were  in  the  mixed  terms  of  Hebrew  sacrifice  and 
Roman  Law,"  that  "the  Light  thus  shining 
through  imperfect  and  stained  windows  was  sadly 
refracted  and  discolored,"  that  "Christianity  at 
the  bottom  should  be  construed  as  a  life-process 
and  not  a  commercial  transaction,"  that  the 
"Higher  Criticism"  had  set  free  the  reason  and 
intuitive  moral  perception  in  the  study  of  the 
Bible  for  the  determining  of  the  extent  and  the  na- 
ture of  its  inspiration,  the  precise  meaning  and 
degree  of  inerrancy  of  its  precepts  and  revela- 
tions, that  this  volume  though  wonderfully  rich 
and  suggestive  was  henceforth  to  be  regarded  sim- 
ply as  a  collection  of  religious  literature,  a  record 
of  life  experiences  and  devout  reflections  of  many 
centuries,  designed  as  a  helpful  stimulant,  not  as 
an  authoritative  dictum  and  finality,  but  pro- 
gressive in  its  revelations  and  standards  of  motive 
and  conduct,  that  the  New  Testament  was  to  a 


64  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

large  extent  a  revisal,  and  in  many  things  a  re- 
versal of  the  Old,  modifying  and  enlarging  its 
conceptions,  that  as  none  of  the  reputed  words  of 
Christ  promulgate  this  doctrine  of  vicarious 
atonement  with  the  exception  of  two  short 
phrases  to  be  found  in  the  twentieth  and  twenty- 
sixth  chapters  of  Matthew,  at  the  close  of  the 
twenty-eighth  verse  in  each,  and  as  they  are  so 
out  of  all  accord  with  his  other  sayings  and  were 
not  committed  to  writing  until  at  least  thirty- 
five  years  after  his  death,  but  handed  down  by 
the  uncertain  word  of  mouth,  we  would  not  be 
going  beyond  our  privilege  to  regard  them  as 
possibly  the  unauthorized  interpolations  of  some 
unknown  scribe  and  in  no  way  binding  upon 
Christian  believers. 

Doctor  Bushnell,  believing  Paul's  teachings 
inspired  and  authoritative,  yet  being  unable  to  ac- 
cept the  current  conception  of  vicarious  sacrifice, 
employed  his  remarkable  gifts,  amounting  almost 
to  genius,  in  showing  how  Paul  has  been  entirely 
misunderstood  and  that  Christ's  mission  was  not 
to  reconcile  God  to  man  but  man  to  God.  The 
whole  misconception  of  Christendom,  he  conjec- 
tured, has  grown  out  of  a  too  wide  separation  of 
the  three  persons  in  the  Godhead,  and  that  had 
God  been  conceived  of  as  possessing  a  unified  and 
indivisible  self,  that  he  was  triune  only  in  some 
such  sense  as  we  are,  the  three  persons  being  but 
three  phases  of  the  self-same  Divine  Ego,  the 
stern  sense  of  justice  of  the  Father  and  the 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  65 

yearning  self-abnegating  love  of  the  Son  repre- 
senting but  different  attitudes  of  the  one  Divine 
Spirit  toward  humanity,  the  theology  of  the  ages 
would  not  have  gone  so  lamentably  far  astray. 
Modern  science  in  so  far  as  it  has  been  able  to 
penetrate  the  deep  mysteries  of  personality  has 
by  its  disclosures  confirmed  with  no  uncertain 
emphasis,  though  without  design,  this  view  of 
Christ's  nature  and  the  purpose  of  his  mission, 
advanced  by  these  two  learned  doctors  of  divinity. 
It  will  be  found,  I  am  strongly  persuaded,  that 
the  doctrine  that  Christ  in  one  very  important 
sense  was  Divine,  when  once  rightly  understood, 
does  not  necessarily  contain  any  confusion  of 
thought  as  to  the  true  nature  of  personality,  or 
in  any  way  antagonize  the  conclusions  of  science 
on  this  the  most  perplexing  of  questions,  but  that 
modern  discoveries  in  mental  phenomena  will  be 
found  here  also  to  be  Christianity's  most  helpful 
allies.  There  are  three  widely  different  opinions 
prevailing  among  evangelical  theologians  as  to 
Christ's  nature;  first,  that  he  never  possessed  any 
human  soul,  but  that  a  human  body  simply  was 
animated  for  a  season  by  the  Divine  Spirit;  sec- 
ond, that  while  he  indeed  had  a  soul,  this  was  so 
completely  and  permanently  blended  with  the 
Divine  Spirit  that  they  together  constituted  a 
single  new  and  unique  personality  which  will  re- 
main intact  through  all  the  eternal  ages ;  third, 
that  Christ  was  of  a  dual  nature,  lived  a  dual 
life,  had  two  infinitely  different  spirits  alternately 


66  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

animating  and  controlling  his  body,  sending  elec- 
tric waves  of  thought  and  emotion  over  the  brain, 
that  most  delicate  and  mysterious  of  all  its 
organs,  that  at  times  only  the  human  was  mani- 
fest with  its  many  weaknesses  and  limitations,  its 
longings  and  its  griefs,  and  then  again  only  the 
Divine  appeared,  teaching  with  authority,  for- 
giving sins,  scanning  the  secret  intents  of  the 
heart,  lifting  the  curtains  of  the  future,  healing 
the  sick,  restoring  the  blind,  even  raising  the  dead. 
I  seriously  question  whether  the  first  two  opin- 
ions can  bear  the  searching  scrutiny  of  this 
critical  age,  and  as  neither  of  them  embodies  my 
own  belief  I  will  not  now  take  time  to  state  their 
grounds  of  defense.  The  third,  however,  seeming 
to  be  in  perfect  accord  not  only  with  the  facts 
of  history  but  with  the  conclusions  of  science,  is 
worthy  of  at  least  a  tentative  acceptance. 
Multitudinous  instances  are  well  authenticated  of 
one  personality  being  for  a  time  completely  sub- 
merged by  another  through  that  marvelous  power 
denominated  mesmeric  influence.  These  show 
that  duality  of  nature  is  certainly  possible,  that 
two  spirits  can  alternately  employ  the  same  set 
of  bodily  organs.  We  have  seen  the  mesmerized 
under  this  strange  spell  losing  for  a  time  his 
identity,  thinking  the  thoughts  and  thrilling  with 
the  emotional  life  of  another.  I,  of  course,  would 
not  attempt  to  designate  or  explain  the  precise 
mode  of  this  particular  Divine  informing  in  the 
case  of  Christ,  but  simply  to  show  that  the  facts 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  67 

we  have  unearthed  in  our  scientific  researches 
into  the  subtle  power  of  mind  over  matter  in  the 
realm  of  Nature  as  well  as  of  mind  over  mind 
serve  to  illustrate  and  confirm  the  third  attempted 
explanation  of  the  mystery  that  shrouds  this  the 
strangest  visitant  our  earth  has  ever  had.  The 
testimony  of  our  own  self-consciousness  convinces 
us  that  the  ego  is  an  indivisible  unit,  a  wholly 
separate  entity  in  itself,  from  which  nothing  can 
be  taken,  to  which  nothing  can  be  added,  with 
which  no  other  ego  can  be  so  blended  that  they 
will  permanently  disappear  and  a  new  complex 
third  ego  result  from  this  union.  But  that  one 
ego  can  so  dominate  over  another,  so  completely 
capture  the  body  that  incases  it  and  through 
which  alone  it  can  operate  as  to  cause  a  period 
of  oblivion  to  pass  over  it,  is  a  fact  that  can  be 
witnessed  almost  any  day.  The  vanished  ego  is, 
however,  not  destroyed  but  simply  repressed  and 
will  promptly  reassert  itself  the  moment  the 
dominating  power  is  removed.  There  is  here  no 
blending  of  egos,  no  joint  action  of  consciousness, 
nor  is  there  the  incoming  of  some  new  self,  but 
simply  the  temporary  domination  of  the  stronger 
over  the  weaker  one.  This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  a 
possible  explanation  of  the  many  apparent  con- 
tradictions in  Christ's  allusions  to  himself  and  in 
the  facts  of  his  life.  In  that  forty  days'  combat 
with  the  tempter  at  the  opening  of  his  career,  in 
that  last  all-night  agony  of  prayer  in  the  Gar- 
den at  its  close,  in  all  the  sufferings  and  strug- 


68  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

glings  and  most  glorious  triumphings  that  filled 
the  years  between,  in  all  his  sense  of  weakness 
and  weariness  and  most  pressing  need  of  help 
which  his  frequent  seasons  of  secret  prayer  be- 
tray, we  see  the  brave  battlings  of  simply  a  noble 
human  soul;  but  when  we  hear  him  call  out  in 
tones  of  authority  as  he  stands  with  mourning 
friends  at  the  door  of  a  sepulchre  "Lazarus, 
come  forth,"  when  we  hear  him  say  to  the  help- 
less paralytic  as  he  is  laid  at  his  feet  "Thy  sins 
are  forgiven  thee,"  when  we  hear  him  assure  the 
penitent  brigand  who  hangs  beside  him  on  the 
cross,  "This  day  thou  shalt  be  with  me  in  Para- 
dise," we  hear  the  voiced  mandates  and  blessed 
assurances  of  a  God. 

Thus  we  see  that  Science  cannot  rightly  urge 
against  the  claim  that  Christ  was  both  human 
and  Divine  the  objection  that  this  is  in  direct  con- 
flict with  the  testimony  of  self-consciousness  as 
to  the  essential  unity  and  indivisibility  of  the  ego. 
Great  confusion  of  thought  has  arisen  among  the 
mass  of  Christian  believers  out  of  the  dogma, 
which  they  feel  forced  to  accept,  that  while  there 
is  but  one  God  he  is  composed  of  three  separate 
independent  personalities.  They  are  seemingly 
uninformed  that  the  word  "persons"  can  be  used 
in  a  restricted  sense  and  indeed  has  been  in  the 
polemical  writings  of  some  of  our  most  eminent 
theologians.  It  is  unquestionably  impossible  for 
us  to  conceive  of  three  absolutely  distinct  egos 
being  combined  into  one,  and  that  too  during  the 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  69 

very  time  they,  each,  maintain  intact  their  own 
individuality.  This  is  simply  a  contradiction 
and  confusion  of  thought,  or  rather,  we  might 
say,  it  is  mere  jugglery  of  words;  for  to  us,  con- 
stituted as  we  are,  with  our  clear  consciousness  of 
a  unified  and  indivisible  self,  such  a  proposition 
is  absolutely  unthinkable.  But  there  is  a  sense 
in  which  we  ourselves  possess  a  triune  nature,  the 
ego  in  us  being  made  up  of  the  intellect,  the  sens- 
ibility and  the  will.  We  are  capable  of  self-com- 
munings,  of  self-criticism,  of  self-conflict,  of  gen- 
eral introspective  thought.  In  this  sense  and  only 
in  this,  can  we  form  any  adequate  conception  of 
what  has  been  styled  a  triune  God,  and  without 
a  conception,  a  picture  in  the  mind,  belief  is  im- 
possible. It  is  said  that  we  are  created  in  God's 
image.  Certain  it  is  that  the  very  utmost  we  can 
conceive  of  God  is  as  a  spirit  possessing  in  in- 
finite perfection  faculties  and  attributes  similar 
to  those  which  we  ourselves  possess  in  but  par- 
tially developed  germ,  the  difference  being  not  in 
kind  but  simply  in  degree  and  in  healthfulness 
of  development.  If  he  has  any  quality  or  at- 
tribute radically  different  from  ours,  of  which 
there  is  in  us  no  likeness,  we  can  have  no  knowl- 
edge of  it  whatever,  it  cannot  possibly  be  re- 
vealed to  us,  we  having  no  conceptual  capacity 
for  such  a  thought.  As  well  attempt  to  teach  the 
horse  we  drive  a  proposition  in  Euclid.  There- 
fore all  we  know  of  God  or  can  believe  about  him 
must  necessarily  come  through  the  medium  of  our 


70  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

own  self-knowledge,  and  through  that  alone. 
The  three  persons  in  the  Trinity  can  possibly 
mean  to  us  nothing  more  than  different  phases  or 
presentations  of  the  same  Divine  Ego,  and  any 
language  of  Scripture  which  seems  to  mean  more 
than  this  must  be  regarded  simply  as  bold  poetic 
personification,  a  mode  of  thought  peculiarly 
fascinating  to  the  quickly  kindling  fancy  of  the 
Orient,  and  a  marked  feature  of  its  literature. 

"At  morn  I  prayed,  'I  fain  would  see 

How  Three  are  One  and  One  is  Three 
Read  the  dark  riddle  unto  me.' 

"In  vain  I  turned  in  weary  quest 

Old  pages  where  (God  give  them  rest) 
The  poor  creed  mongers  dreamed  and  guessed. 

"O !  blind  of  sight,  of  faith  how  small 

Father  and  Son  and  Holy  Call, 
This  day  thou  hast  denied  them  all. 

"Revealed  in  love  and  sacrifice 

The  Holiest  passed  before  thine  eyes 
One  and  the  same  in  three-fold  guise. 

"The  equal  Father  in  rain  and  sun, 

His  Christ  in  the  good  to  evil  done, 
His  Voice  in  thy  soul; — and  the  three  are  one." 

"And  my  heart  answered  'Lord  I  see 

How  Three  are  One  and  One  is  Three 
The  riddle  hath  been  read  to  me.'  " 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  71 

The  more  deeply  I  have  reflected  on  the  ab- 
solute necessity  of  Christ's  mission,  and  the 
equally  absolute  adequacy  of  it  for  the  completion 
of  this  vast  plan  of  world-organism  to  which  I 
have  directed  attention,  the  more  deeply  I  have 
been  impressed  with  Christ's  unique  universality 
of  nature,  his  perfect  intellectual  and  spiritual 
equipment,  his  majestic,  incomparable  world- 
sympathy.  There  is  a  notable  absence  of  any 
racial  aversion,  of  any  narrow  Jewish  bigotry  or 
prejudice,  of  any  limitation  characteristic  of 
some  single  age,  or  class,  or  clime.  His  concep- 
tions and  ethical  principles  are  such  as  can  never 
be  out-grown  by  advancing  culture,  by  the  widen- 
ing of  the  horizons  of  thought,  by  higher  world- 
standards.  He  still  stands  in  the  fore-front, 
though  nineteen  centuries  have  come  and  gone 
since  his  advent.  He  satisfies  the  needs  of  all 
social  grades,  of  all  mental  types.  Self-effacing 
love,  life's  quenchless,  mightiest,  foremost  force, 
is  that  which  he  has  ever  sought  to  evoke,  which 
he  aims  to  make  the  main  motive  in  every  human 
heart,  the  highest  ideal  in  every  human  life.  De- 
voted attachment  to  himself  as  an  ever  living 
personality  is  the  imperishable  incentive  in  his  re- 
ligion. By  it  he  has  brought  the  Divine  Spirit 
out  of  the  inscrutable  solitudes  into  the  purview 
of  human  thought,  within  the  embrace  of  human 
love.  This  supreme  attachment  is  the  quickening 
force  in  all  social  ethical  advancements.  It  has 
prompted  all  the  great  beneficences  for  humanity, 


72  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

kindled  hatred  of  oppression,  purified  love  of 
liberty,  awakened  zeal  for  the  truth,  inspired  hope 
in  the  despondent,  proved  itself  indispensable  in 
the  manifold  uplift  of  the  race.  Christ's  high 
ideals  permeate  all  best  literatures,  all  highest 
art,  have  been  paramount  in  all  advancements  in 
social  reform  during  past  centuries. 

Right  here  this  most  vital  question  forces  itself 
upon  every  thoughtful  mind ;  has  it  been  revealed 
in  the  character  and  career  of  Christ  that  the 
Divine  and  the  human  spirit  can  be  inter-penetra- 
tive, that  there  is  an  affinity  of  nature  between 
the  two,  a  close  communion  of  life,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  distinctiveness  of  personality,  and  that  the 
incarnation  disclosed  not  only  God  to  man  but 
also  man  to  himself  as  God's  ideal  susceptible  of 
subsequent  unfolding  into  complete  likeness  and 
finally  into  joint  heirship  with  Christ  himself? 
It  was  imperative  that  there  should  be  revealed 
a  Divine  Ideal  for  the  human  soul  to  aspire  after 
and  grow  to. 

This  subtle,  magnetic  transforming  power  of 
personal  intimacy  and  attachment  has  arrested 
attention  in  these  last  days  of  tireless  scientific 
inquiry  with  an  emphasis  never  before  felt.  Its 
inexhaustible  possibilities  have  filled  us  with 
amazement.  It  was  this  influence  of  such 
strange,  measureless  potency  which  Christ  chose 
with  an  infinite  wisdom  as  his  chief  ally  to  dis- 
ciple mankind  and  win  his  kingdom. 

Yet  exactly  how   Christ  was   Divine,   how  the 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  73 

union  of  the  two  natures  was  effected  and  main- 
tained, and  how  it  is  that  we  with  our  finiteness 
are  assured  that  we  will  eventually  become  as 
truly  Divine  with  him  if  we  through  his  influence 
finally  grow  into  his  spirit  of  loving  self-sacrifice, 
has  long  been  with  me  a  very  serious  and  most 
perplexing  question.  How  is  it  that  he  is  our 
elder  brother,  that  we  are  to  be  joint  heirs  with 
him,  if  he  was  really  Divine?  What  did  he  mean 
in  that  marvelous  farewell  prayer  for  his  disciples 
when  he  said  "The  glory  which  thou  gavest  me  I 
have  given  them,"  if  that  glory  was  essentially 
a  Divine  effulgence?  Is  it  possible  that  our 
spirits  will  be  privileged  at  the  last  to  enter  into 
the  self-same  intimate  union  with  the  Divine  that 
Christ  experienced  and  to  undergo  a  like  Divine 
transfiguration?  Was  it  a  man  or  a  God  or  both 
combined  that  suffered  and  died  on  the  Cross? 
or  was  the  union  and  the  suffering  on  God's  part 
simply  sympathetic,  each  spirit  maintaining  in- 
tact through  it  all  its  own  distinctive  personality? 
The  discoveries  of  modern  science  have  for  me 
gone  far  in  solving  this  the  deepest  mystery  of 
the  ages.  The  thought  has  already  been  incor- 
porated in  preceding  paragraphs  but  lest  it  has 
not  been  duly  emphasized  or  made  clear  I  will 
venture  on  a  brief  restatement  of  its  salient 
points. 

Confirmatory  of  our  modern  belief  in  the  ex- 
istence of  an  intimately  woven  material  world- 
organism  is  the  discovery  of  what  is  termed 


74  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

luminiferous  ether,  the  nature  and  universal  prev- 
alence of  which  I  have  elsewhere  attempted  to 
describe.  Its  apparent  properties  are  so  utterly 
at  variance  with  those  of  which  we  have  always 
supposed  matter  to  consist  we  have  been  tempted 
at  first  to  dismiss  all  statements  concerning  it  as 
preposterous,  as  wholly  chimerical,  but  as  there  is 
no  dissenting  voice  among  scientists  as  to  its 
reality  and  its  seemingly  contradictory  proper- 
ties we  are  simply  forced  to  confess  that  there  are 
mysteries  about  matter  we  are  not  yet  able  to 
fathom.  As  John  Fiske  puts  it,  "How  curious 
to  think  that  we  live  and  move  in  an  ocean  of 
ether,  in  which  the  particles  of  all  material  things 
are  floating  like  islands.  But  how  amazing  to 
learn  that  this  ocean  of  ether  is  also  an  adaman- 
tine firmament.  Is  not  this  sheer  nonsense,  an 
ocean-firmament  of  ether-adamant.  Yet  such 
seems  to  be  the  fact  and  our  philosophy  must 
make  the  best  of  it."  Granite  and  steel  are  con- 
spicious  for  their  solidity,  yet  the  particles  of 
which  they  are  composed,  instead  of  touching 
each  other  are  floating  like  separate  islands  in 
this  strange  ether.  Although  its  pressure  is,  ac- 
cording to  Herschel,  Jevons  and  other  eminent 
scientists  equal  to  seventeen  billion  pounds  to  the 
square  inch,  indicating  an  almost  infinite  com- 
pactness, we  cannot  feel  it,  we  cannot  see  it,  and 
the  swarming  worlds  that  people  space  whirl 
through  it  as  unobstructedly  as  through  a 
vacuum.  It  is  through  this  that  waves  of  light 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  75 

are  propagated  at  a  speed  of  from  one  hundred 
and  eighty-five  to  two  hundred  thousand  miles  per 
second,  electricity  is  flashed,  radiant  heat  travels, 
magnetic  attractions  and  repulsions  thrill  and 
startle  with  their  mysteries,  the  universal  force 
of  gravitation  is  supposed  to  maintain  its  sway. 
With  what  incredulity  we  first  heard  of  the 
achievements  of  the  telegraph  with  its  long 
stretches  of  metal  highways  over  whose  closed 
circuits  the  mind's  messages  succeeded  in  wing- 
ing their  way.  Now  by  touching  the  keys  of  our 
instruments  we  toss  our  thoughts  out  into  wire- 
less space  and  instantly  throughout  all  this  cir- 
cumambient ether  circling  waves  of  agitation 
widen  out  into  immensity,  following  each  other  in 
inconceivably  rapid  succession  until  at  last, 
leagues  of  distance  awa}r,  they  break  on  the  shore 
of  some  attuned  receiver  and  tell  their  tale  of  joy 
or  sorrow  to  some  listening  ear,  to  some  throbbing 
heart.  The  fact  that  thus  distance  is  practically 
annihilated,  that  soul  is  thus  brought  into  im- 
mediate touch  with  soul  we  would  utterly  refuse  to 
credit  were  it  not  demonstrated  hour  after  hour 
right  in  our  very  presence. 

These  astounding  phenomena  find  their  coun- 
terpart in  the  spiritual  realm.  Without  strung 
wires,  without  electric  instruments  of  any  kind, 
our  widely  separated  spirits  are  somehow,  we  do 
not  know  how,  brought  into  telepathic  touch  with 
each  other.  We  not  only  seem  to  hear  each 
other's  voices,  to  look  into  each  other's  familiar 


76  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

faces,  but  evert  to  step  across  the  threshold 
of  the  flesh  and  enter  within  the  veil.  It  took 
many  years  of  patient  investigation  to  con- 
vince us  that  the  phenomena  of  telepathy  were 
anything  more  than  figments  of  a  disordered 
fancy.  Now,  however,  they  are  accepted  every- 
where as  proven  facts  of  science.  We  have  not 
yet  discovered  the  laws  under  which  these  com- 
munications are  carried  on  nor  the  exact  nature 
of  that  all  pervasive  transmitting  medium  whose 
real  existence  we  have  long  since  ceased  to  ques- 
tion, and  have  not  yet  succeeded  in  bringing  into 
service  these  occult  powers  as  we  have  those  of 
steam  and  electricity,  but  their  actual  existence 
has  become  thoroughly  established,  and  they,  too, 
will,  no  doubt,  some  day  be  brought  under  man's 
control  and  answer  to  his  needs.  Closely  allied 
with  them  are  hypnotic,  clairvoyant,  and  other 
partially  hidden  powers  which  also  as  yet  manifest 
themselves  largely  under  abnormal  conditions. 
They  seem  in  great  part  to  be  held  in  reserve, 
whether  for  a  later  period  in  this  life  or  for  some 
other  sphere  of  existence  we  cannot  now  deter- 
mine. Until  we  have  further  light  we  would  be 
justified  in  regarding  them  as  precursors,  fore- 
shadowings  of  a  life  beyond. 

The  psychdtherapeutic  dominance  of  the  sub- 
conscious self,  of  which  we  are  now  hearing  so 
much,  which  Christ  doubtless  employed  as  one  of 
the  agencies  in  effecting  cures  during  his  earthly 
ministry,  and  which  he  left  as  a  legacy  to  his 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  77 

disciples,  is  a  part  and  a  proof  no  doubt  of  this 
intimate  interplay  of  forces  in  the  world-organism 
of  which  I  have  hitherto  been  speaking.  This 
complicate  organization  established  throughout 
the  physical  and  spiritual  realms  seems  to  have 
been  devised  in  the  counsels  of  eternity  as  Christ's 
instrument  for  winning  souls  into  his  Kingdom, 
for  it  was  with  the  magnetism  of  just  such  an 
infinitely  loving  personality  he  came  surcharged 
and  which  he  still  retains  in  all  its  matchless, 
living  force,  it  was  with  this  self-same  personal 
affection  he  sought  to  inspire  his  disciples.  Up- 
on the  entering  thus  into  closest  touch  with  all 
human  hearts  he  based  his  hopes  of  ultimately 
winning  and  transforming  all  human  lives.  In 
that  last  most  tenderly  pathetic  prayer  for  his 
little  group  of  followers  and  their  successors 
how  significant  that  he  should  repeat  over  and 
over  again  this  very  conception  we  have  been 
trying  to  express,  "Holy  Father,  keep  through 
thine  own  name  those  whom  thou  hast  given  me, 
that  they  may  be  one  as  we  are — neither  pray 
I  for  these  alone  but  for  them  also  which  shall 
believe  on  me  through  their  word,  that  they  all 
may  be  one,  as  thou  Father  art  in  me  and  I  in 
thee,  that  they  may  be  made  perfect  in  one."  An 
intent  yearning  for  an  eternal  love-union  seemed 
to  have  poured  in  like  a  flood  on  his  sorrow-bur- 
dened soul  in  these  last  hours.  Right  here  we 
find  the  true  touchstone  of  his  ministry. 

F.  W.  H.  Myers,  in  his  last  and  greatest  work 


78  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

entitled  "Human  Personality,"  has  remarked,  "It 
was  a  great  day  when  a  previously  unsuspected 
capacity  for  electrical  excitation  demonstrated  the 
fact  that  we  had  long  been  acted  upon  by  electri- 
city as  well  as  by  heat  and  light ;  that  we  were  liv- 
ing in  an  inconceivable  and  limitless  environment, 
— namely  an  ether  charged  with  infinite  energy, 
overpassing  and  interpenetrating  alike  the  last 
gulf  of  darkness  and  the  extremest  star.  May 
we  not  suppose  that  there  are  yet  other  environ- 
ments, other  interpenetrations  which  a  further 
awakening  of  faculty  still  subliminal  is  yet  fated 
by  its  own  nascent  response  to  discover.  It  was 
a  great  day  when  a  previously  unsuspected  ca- 
pacity of  telepathic  percipience  revealed  the  fact 
that  we  had  long  been  acted  upon  by  telepathic 
as  well  as  by  sensory  stimuli,  and  that  we  were 
living  in  an  inconceivable  and  limitless  environ- 
ment,— a  thought-world  or  spiritual  universe 
charged  with  infinite  life,  interpenetrating  and 
overpassing  all  human  spirits — up  to  what  some 
have  called  World-Soul,  and  some  God." 

Eminent  psychologists  claim  and  fortify  their 
claim  with  most  startling  facts,  that  below  the 
region  of  consciousness  there  exists  a  secret 
workshop  of  the  mind  in  which  are  wrought  no 
one  knows  how,  most  marvelous  products  of 
thought,  products  that  border  on  the  miraculous. 
Here  is  the  mysterious  birthplace  of  intuitions, 
of  creative  concepts,  of  deductive  hypotheses 
which  eventuate  in  great  discoveries.  Here  too 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  79 

is  the  birthplace  of  poetic  inspiration,  of  previ- 
sion, and  out  of  here  issue  all  those  inimitable 
dreams  of  genius  that  so  enrich  literature  and 
art  and  science  and  religious  belief.  In  my  re- 
search I  have  found  well  attested  facts  of  a  most 
startling  nature,  a  few  of  which  I  have  recited 
in  my  treatment  of  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  facts 
which  have  filled  me  with  wonderment,  even  with 
reverence,  at  the  seemingly  inexhaustible  pos- 
sibilities of  the  human  spirit.  The  first  concep- 
tions of  works  of  genius,  and  often  their  full 
perfected  form  have  been  marked  in  their  genesis 
by  most  surprising  spontaneity,  by  strange  ab- 
sence of  conscious  effort,  they  coming  up  uncalled 
for,  and  unaccounted  for,  out  of  the  depths  of 
the  unknown. 

In  the  presence  of  these  facts  and  experiences 
are  we  not  entirely  justified  in  the  conviction  that 
it  is  out  from  this  very  region,  as  yet  but  little 
explored,  of  the  sub-conscious-self  vast  and,  for 
aught  we  know,  infinite  in  extent,  reaching  down 
into  personality  far  beyond  where  human  plum- 
met has  ever  yet  sounded,  that  it  is  out  from 
this  region  of  shadow  there  issue  the  great  in- 
spirations of  life,  that  it  is  through  this  most 
mysterious  region  we  come  into  answering  touch 
with  the  environing  spirit  world  of  the  universe, 
even  with  God  himself.  Do  not  these  astounding 
discoveries  of  the  complete  compactness  and  in- 
tense vitalization  of  the  universe  and  of  our  own 
vantage  ground  in  it  growing  out  of  this  sub- 


80  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

conscious  part  of  our  being,  of  whose  capacities 
for  spiritual  outreach  to  both  the  living  and  the 
dead,  and  of  direct  impressment,  we  are  as  yet 
but  very  partially  informed,  afford  us  an  inval- 
uable clue  to  the  solution  of  the  mystery  of  the 
character  and  career  of  Christ.  He  was  excep- 
tionally equipped  to  come  into  closest  touch  with 
this  sub-conscious  self,  to  call  into  play  its  mira- 
cle-working powers,  to  bring  their  creations  up  to 
the  threshold  of  consciousness,  and  thus  to  make 
them  serviceable  in  the  exigencies  of  his  excep- 
tional life.  Did  he  not  discern  also  in  us 
potentially  a  like  equipment,  like  abysmal  depths 
of  personality,  a  like  open  door  into  this  universal 
spirit  life,  a  key  to  unlock  the  exhaustless  treas- 
ure-house of  all  sentient  life,  a  possible  widening 
of  our  horizons  of  thought  and  feeling  to  the 
very  uttermost  bounds  of  being,  in  short,  power 
intimately  to  touch  and  take  in,  as  did  he,  the 
very  infinitude  of  the  loving  heart  of  God. 

There  are  many  facts  in  Christ's  career  that 
very  strongly  indicate  that  he  was  pre-eminently, 
as  has  been  suggested,  an  ideal  psychic  healer. 
In  every  human  individual  a  certain  psychic  force 
has  been  found  lying  latent  ready  to  answer  to 
the  call  of  a  confident,  masterful  concentrated 
will.  Late  discoveries  as  to  the  curative  power 
of  suggestion,  put  forth  by  an  outsider  or  arising 
out  of  one's  own  consciousness,  have  been  so  star- 
tling as  to  well  nigh  stagger  belief.  Cults  of 
various  sorts  have  sprung  up  along  down  the  cen- 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  81 

turies,  and  greatly  multiplied  in  these  last  days, 
making  use  in  one  way  or  another  of  this  mys- 
terious transcendency  of  the  mind  over  the  body. 
The  most  startling  and  satisfactory  results  are 
obtained  when  the  healer's  will  is  most  dominant, 
his  faith  in  his  own  powers  most  supreme,  his 
concentration  of  thought  most  complete,  and,  in 
conjunction  with  this,  the  patient's  faith  in  the 
healer  most  unquestioning,  freest  from  adverse 
auto-suggestions  of  every  kind.  As  I  have  entered 
quite  extensively  into  a  discussion  of  this  question 
in  other  parts  of  this  volume  I  will  here  simply  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  Christ  in  the  great 
majority  of  his  cures  will  be  found  to  have  fol- 
lowed closely  the  laws  that  most  effectively  set 
free  this  force.  In  nearly  every  instance  he  de- 
manded an  unquestioning  faith  on  the  part  of 
the  afflicted.  He  confessed  that  in  certain  locali- 
ties he  was  nearly  shorn  of  this  one  of  his  powers 
because  of  a  lamentable  lack  of  faith  among  the 
people.  He  spoke  of  healing  virtue  going  out 
from  him  when  certain  individuals  surcharged  with 
this  recipient  faith  contrived  secretly  to  touch 
him.  His  disciples  when  they  came  to  him  with 
complaints  of  failure  were  told  that  the  hamper- 
ing cause  was  their  lack  of  faith.  In  almost  all 
instances  of  cure  either  by  himself  or  by  his  dis- 
ciples physical  contact  was  employed  as  a  fac- 
tor, as  a  help  to  faith.  A  cold  distrust  oper- 
ated seemingly  as  a  powerful  deterrent.  This 
was  doubtless  true  only  in  such  cases  as  were 


82  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

sought  to  be  effected  through  this  one  channel 
alone.  Thus  far  Christ  utilized  simply  a  psycho- 
therapeutic  force  which  is  clearly  within  our  own 
purview,  and  within,  at  least,  our  partial  control. 
The  nature  of  the  other  powers  which  he  called 
into  play  when  more  than  functional  and  nerv- 
ous disorders,  when  even  organic  losses  or  lesions 
were  restored,  when  the  dead  were  raised,  and 
when,  supreme  above  all,  the  bands  of  his  own 
death  were  burst  asunder  by  his  all  conquering 
will,  baffles  as  yet  human  investigation.  Whether 
these  powers  were  exhibits  of  psychic  control 
which  are  only  temporarily  beyond  human  reach 
or  are  to  be  forever  beyond  it,  whether  in  some 
far  age  our  spirits  are  to  be  to  that  same  extent 
en  rapport  with  the  Divine  as  was  that  of  Christ, 
we  can,  as  yet,  only  conjecture. 

Christ's  knowledge  of  psychic  laws  was  un- 
questionably intuitive  and  complete.  Doctor 
Hudson  in  one  of  his  books  remarks,  "Christ  him- 
self was  the  most  stupendous  psychic  phenomena 
the  world  has  ever  seen.  He  is  the  one  example 
of  a  being  in  whom  the  synchronism  of  develop- 
ment, physical,  intellectual,  psychical  and  moral, 
was  absolutely  perfect.  In  him  the  objective  and 
subjective  faculties  preserved  at  all  times,  under 
all  circumstances,  an  exquisitely  harmonious  bal- 
ance. His  reason  was  always  in  the  ascendency. 
He  never  allowed  himself  to  be  placed  in  such  a 
mental  condition  as  to  render  it  possible  for  him 
to  be  dominated  by  a  false  or  vicious  suggestion. 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  83 

He  never  exercised  his  psychic  power  except  for 
the  accomplishment  of  some  good  object." 

To  this  we  may  add  that  Christ's  super-phys- 
ical powers,  his  use  of  natural  mental  means,  does 
not  detract  from  his  claim  to  an  exceptionally 
intimate  touch  with  the  Divine.  We  would  ex- 
pect him  to  employ  as  far  as  possible  the  already 
established,  Divinely-derived  facilities  for  accom- 
plishing his  desired  results.  His  disciples  were 
instructed  in  the  same  methods, — were  promised 
like  control  over  the  forces  in  nature.  The  real 
proof  of  Christ's  union  with  Divinity  rests  upon 
his  own  affirmation  of  it,  fortified  by  his  complete 
knowledge  of,  and  dominance  over,  physical  and 
mental,  indeed  all  cosmic,  forces,  and  his  use  of 
this  knowledge  and  power  wholly  for  beneficent 
ends.  How  forcibly,  right  here,  is  presented  to 
our  thought  the  possibility,  indeed  the  extreme 
probability,  that  through  this  very  open  door  of 
the  sub-conscious  self  of  Christ  came  the  inflood- 
ing,  in  his  matchless,  love-lighted  life,  of  the 
Divine  Presence,  forming  that  mystic  spirit  union 
which  he  claimed  with  the  Father,  and  that  we, 
it  may  be,  will  be  finally  privileged  to  enter  into 
a  like  transforming  companionship,  by  and  by 
in  the  far  eternity  of  the  soul.  As  I  have  already 
remarked  it  was  for  this  very  same  sympathetic 
blending  of  spirits  that  Christ  so  passionately, 
pathetically  prayed  the  Father  during  that  last 
memorable  reunion  with  his  disciples,  "that  they 
all  may  be  one  as  thou  art  in  me  and  I  in  thee" ; 


84  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

it  was  that  priceless  privilege  of  finally  becoming 
joint  heirs  with  him  he  so  confidently  pledged  all 
those  who  should  unreservedly  love  him  and  love 
him  to  the  end. 

Theologians  in  attempting  to  solve  the  problem 
of  Christ's  personality  and  to  account  for  the  fact 
that  he  alone  of  all  the  unnumbered  millions  of 
spirits  that  have  sojourned  for  a  season  on  this 
planet  never  sinned,  never  seemingly  had  any  con- 
sciousness of  the  least  short-coming  or  need  of 
forgiveness, — have  affirmed  of  him  a  nature,  a 
combination  of  attributes  absolutely  beyond 
human  power  to  conceive.  Why  thus  attempt  the 
impossible?  Why  enter  upon  lines  of  thought 
that  can  end  only  in  hopeless  bewilderment?  Dr. 
D.  W.  Forrest,  a  most  eminent  divine  in  Edin- 
burgh, in  his  "Christ  of  History"  has  tried,  and 
I  think  tried  in  vain,  to  sound  these  depths.  He 
says  "If  Christ's  personality  represents  a  new 
stage  in  man's  consciousness  of  God  it  is  a  stage 
which  closes  with  himself.  He  has  no  more  been 
reproduced  in  Christendom  than  he  was  antici- 
pated in  Judaism.  There  is  a  double  break  in  the 
continuity.  Naturalistic  evolution  fails  to  ac- 
count for  him  alike  in  connection  with  what  pre- 
cedes and  with  what  follows  him,  and  it  is  the  lat- 
ter failure  which  is  fatal."  "We  can  see  indeed 
that  in  some  respects  he  has  realized  the  very  ideal 
of  humanity  which  we  cherish  and  long  to  reach, 
but  he  has  not  reached  it  along  our  lines,  and  so 
the  inspiration  of  his  life  is  enfeebled  by  a  doubt." 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  85 

"We  talk  too  easily  of  Christ  as  our  great  ex- 
ample. The  peculiarity  of  his  attitude  is  that 
it  cannot  be  imitated.  Here  is  a  note  we  cannot 
sound" — "The  forms  and  conditions  under  which 
Christ  develops  are  truly  human,  yet  the  person- 
ality developed  though  human  also,  is  of  a  type 
of  which  other  men  do  not  possess  the  possibility, 
and  which  they  cannot  even  imaginably  realize,  a 
union  of  characteristics  which  eludes  definite  con- 
ception."— "We  may  say,  if  we  choose,  that  there 
was  but  one  consciousness  in  him  as  there  was  but 
one  personality,  that  of  the  Word  made  flesh." 

The  conclusion  here  reached  by  this  most 
learned  and  world-famed  theologian  absolutely 
shuts  Christ  out  of  human  conception,  out  of 
human  imitation,  and  out  of  human  love. 

It  affirms  that  two  egos  can  be  indissolubly  con- 
joined into  a  single  new  and  incomprehensible  one. 
The  testimony  of  our  self-consciousness  as  I  have 
already  remarked  positively  confutes  such  a  com- 
bination and  consequent  new  creation.  That  our 
spirits  are,  each  one  of  them,  unique,  indivisible 
entities  is  the  very  basic  belief  of  our  being.  If 
Christ  contrary  to  his  professions,  bore  some  of 
the  deceptive  semblances  of  a  perfect  humanity, 
the  part  he  played  of  a  loving  and  lovable  leader 
was  all  a  heartless  farce. 

Doctor  Henry  P.  Liddon  in  his  famed  Bompton 
lectures  affirms  that  "G'od  incarnate  in  Christ, 
willed  each  volition  of  Christ's  human  will," — 
"that  from  the  first  Christ's  human  will  was  con- 


86  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

trolled  by  the  Divine  to  which  it  is  indissolubly 
joined," — that  "Our  Lord  as  God  and  man,  had 
two  wills  but  the  Divine  originated  and  ruled  his 
action,"  that  "the  person  of  Christ  is  one  and  in- 
dissoluble." No  wonder  that  this  eminent  expos- 
itor after  these  most  astounding  statements  should 
have  felt  impelled  to  confess  that  here  he 
"touched  upon  the  line  at  which  revealed  truth 
shades  off  into  inaccessible  mystery." 

If  Christ's  human  will  was  thus  absolutely  sub- 
merged, robbed  from  first  to  last  of  all  individ- 
uality, of  all  freedom  of  choice,  he  on  his  human 
side  must  have  been  none  other  than  a  mere  au- 
tomaton without  any  capacity  for  loving  self- 
sacrifice,  without  any  real  capacity  for  virtue  of 
any  sort,  though  the  prime  purpose  of  his  mission 
was  to  body  it  forth  in  its  very  completeness,  vir- 
tue pre-supposing  susceptibility  to  temptation 
and  triumph  over  it.  Only  in  an  environment  of 
liberty  can  love  live,  can  it  ever  be  manifested  or 
maintained.  When  the  Doctor  asserts  finally  the 
indissoluble  and  submerging  union  of  Christ's 
personality  with  the  Divine,  he,  it  seems  to  me, 
reaches  the  very  climax  of  contradiction;  he,  for 
us,  shuts  forever  the  door  of  hope. 

C.  F.  Nalloth,  of  Oxford,  in  a  very  learned 
treatise  entitled  "The  Person  of  our  Lord  and 
Recent  Thought,"  concedes  that  Christ  was  a  man 
among  men,  that  every  essential  element  of  true 
human  life  was  observable  in  him  and  has  been 
recorded  in  the  New  Testament,  claiming  this  as 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  87 

the  bed  rock  on  which  Christianity  rests.  Yet 
he  adds  that  Christ  was  not  a  Divine  Person  who 
became  a  human  person,  but  a  Divine  Person  who 
took  another  nature  in  addition  to  his  own,  main- 
taining to  the  full  his  own  original  personality. 
He  seems  content  with  the  confession  simply  that, 
"such  a  coalescence  of  two  whole  and  perfect  na- 
tures with  their  separate  endowments  into  a  single 
new  personality  is  an  unexplained  mystery,"  but 
at  the  same  time  credible,  failing  to  realize  that 
it  is  something  more  than  a  mystery,  that  it  is  a 
downright,  inconceivable  contradiction,  as  I  have 
previously  pointed  out,  a  resultant  absolutely  un- 
thinkable by  us  intuitively  conscious  as  we  are  of 
possessing,  each  one,  a  separate  selfhood  from 
which  nothing  can  be  taken  and  to  which  nothing 
can  be  added.  Not  only  can  no  new  ego  result 
from  the  coalescence  of  other  two,  but  neither  of 
those  two  can  ever  be  destroyed  if  the  well  known 
axiom  of  science  is  true,  that  a  real  entity,  spirit- 
ual or  otherwise,  can  never  become  a  non-entity, 
be  absolutely  blotted  out  of  being  even  by  Divine 
fiat. 

This  author  in  his  two  closing  chapters  in  sum- 
ming up  the  results  of  his  research  assures  us 
that,  while  the  Jews'  conception  of  God  was  of 
a  solitary  Personality,  the  Apostolic  writers  em- 
braced the  belief,  derived  as  they  thought  from 
Christ's  own  teachings,  that  the  Godhead  had 
united  in  itself  from  all  eternity  three  separate 
personalities,  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 


88  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

Spirit,  that  only  the  Son,  who  had  been  eternally 
pre-existent,  became  incarnate,  "laying  aside  the 
glory  which  he  had  with  the  Father  before  the 
world  was,"  and  became  conjoined  in  some  unex- 
plained way  with  a  human  soul,  forming  thereby 
an  absolutely  new  personality  never  afterward  to 
be  dissolved ;  that  the  Father  and  the  Holy  Spirit 
thus  temporarily  separated  from  the  Son,  contin- 
ued above  in  the  spirit-world  in  their  original  un- 
abated glory,  while  the  Son,  after  his  mission  of 
humiliation  was  ended  returned  again  into  the 
bosom  of  the  Father,  taking  with  him,  however,  a 
human  soul  with  which  he  was  conjoined  and  was 
to  be  conjoined  forever  after.  This  entire  scheme 
of  thought  is  considered  by  our  author  to  be  in  per- 
fect accord  with  the  Gospel  narrative,  and,  to  our 
astonishment  be  it  said,  is  claimed  by  him  to  be 
within  the  pale  of  human  conception  and  worthy  of 
human  belief.  To  both  of  which  counts  we  must, 
it  seems  to  me,  in  the  interest  of  clear  thinking,  en- 
ter a  most  emphatic  dissent.  Either  the  words  of 
Scripture  are  susceptible  of  a  widely  different  in- 
terpretation, or  else  they  are  but  the  blind  grop- 
ings  of  uninspired  and  unsafe  guides  in  the  fields 
of  faith.  Such  a  personality  as  the  one  here  de- 
picted could  never  disciple  a  sorrowing  and  sin- 
ful world,  being  not  only  inconceivable  by  finite 
minds  but  hopelessly  beyond  the  reach  of  human 
aspiration  and  of  hungering  human  love.  It 
would  negative  completely  the  peremptory  com- 
mand, which  is  necessarily  accompanied  with  the 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  89 

promise  of  the  power  for  us  to  be  like  Christ, 
and  would  turn  into  mockery  the  prophecy  that 
by  and  by  we  will  reign  as  joint  heirs  with  him 
in  the  Kingdom  that  is  to  be. 

We  cannot  suppose  for  a  moment  that  these 
among  our  great  expounders  of  religious  thought 
set  out  with  the  deliberate  purpose  of  reaching 
such  conclusions  but  have  lamentably  lost  their 
way  in  the  labyrinthine  mazes  of  their  own 
speculations.  Better  far  for  all  of  us  to  con- 
tent ourselves  with  answers  to  the  following  plain 
questions :  Is  man  of  sufficient  consequence  to  war- 
rant Christ's  coming?  Was  there  an  imperative 
necessity  for  him  to  come  in  order  to  rescue 
man  from  the  guilt  of  sin  and  from  its  destructive 
consequences,  to  furnish  an  indispensable  and  at- 
tainable ideal  to  which  to  aspire?  To  reach  this 
height  of  spiritual  perfection  on  Christ's  part  was 
it  imperative  that  the  Divine  Spirit  should  enter 
into  intimate  relationship  with  the  human  and 
were  there  convincing  evidences  in  Christ's  life 
that  some  such  union  was  effected?  Were 
Christ's  concepts  and  conduct  broad  enough  and 
pure  enough  to  warrant  us  in  believing  that  in 
him  was  actually  fulfilled  that  type  of  spiritual 
perfection  striven  after  and  prophesied  in  the 
ceaseless  processes  of  evolution  carried  on  through 
the  ages?  Were  Christ's  sympathies  apparently 
deep  enough  and  wide  enough  to  overleap  every 
barrier  of  race  or  class  prejudice,  to  embrace  in 
its  folds  every  sort  and  condition  of  men?  Are 


90  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

the  means  he  adopted,  that  of  a  deeply  sympa- 
thetic personality,  the  most  effective,  the  only  ef- 
fective force  for  winning  back  a  lost  world?  What 
other  personage  than  Christ  has  ever  appeared 
in  all  history  who  has  ever  stood  these  essential 
and  searching  tests? 

Why  set  out  on  the  bootless  quest  of  precisely 
how,  or  to  what  extent  the  Divine  and  the  human 
were  conjoined  in  Christ.  Why  not  rest  satisfied 
with  simply  some  such  tentative  explanation,  as  I 
have  suggested  of  how  a  union  was  possible. 
Why  not  accept  trustingly  and  gratefully  as  a 
fact  of  priceless  promise  that  they  were  in  some 
way  actually  conjoined,  and  the  long  sought  for 
ideal  life  was  somehow  thus  actually  attained? 
No  one  thinks  of  questioning  the  equally  mys- 
terious fact,  everywhere  patent  throughout  na- 
ture, that  in  some  way  the  life-forces  have  become 
so  conjoined  with  unorganized  material  masses, 
and  have  attained  such  transforming  power  over 
them  that  they  have  risen  up  into  myriad  forms  of 
vegetable  and  animal  beauty  to  grace  the  land- 
scape, people  the  seas,  and  wing  the  air.  No  one 
disputes  the  fact,  at  the  same  time  no  one  pre- 
tends to  be  able  to  solve  the  mystery.  The  pon- 
derous works  on  theology  with  which  the  shelves 
of  the  world's  libraries  are  loaded,  are  most  of 
them  but  the  recorded  failures  of  the  keenest  in- 
tellects in  this  domain  of  thought.  As  I  have 
already  remarked,  we  ought  to  rest  content  with 
simply  establishing,  as  we  may,  these  fundamental 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  91 

facts,  that  a  certain  unique  personage  nineteen 
hundred  years  ago  entered,  in  some  way,  through 
life's  portals;  that  his  conduct  and  conversation 
during  the  few  troubled  years  of  his  sojourn 
were,  as  far  as  has  been  discovered,  absolutely 
without  flaw;  that  his  system  of  ethics  has  never 
been  superseded,  or  even  improved  upon  in  any 
essential  feature;  that  his  unparalleled  altruistic 
love,  he  loving  with  utter  self-renunication  and 
loving  to  the  end,  has  ever  been,  and  still  is,  the 
foremost  uplifting  power  at  work  in  the  world; 
that  his  incomparable  creative  personality,  so  per- 
fect in  its  purity,  so  deep  and  broad  in  its  sym- 
pathies as  to  embrace  the  lowliest  as  well  as  the 
most  gifted,  is  fully  fitted  to  satisfy  the  utmost 
craving  of  the  human  heart ;  that  his  coming  was 
absolutely  demanded  in  order  that  through  him 
there  might  be  revealed  to  our  bewildered  thought 
the  vision  of  a  definite,  thinkable,  Heavenly 
Father,  and  the  blessed  assurance  of  an  endless 
life.  Further  than  this  we  cannot  go;  further 
than  this  we  need  not.  In  a  little  volume,  en- 
titled, "No  Refuge  but  the  Truth,"  containing 
the  last  utterances  of  Goldwin  Smith,  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  and  illustrious  free  thinkers  of 
modern  times,  I  find  the  refreshingly  frank  admis- 
sion that  "of  the  New  Testament  there  remains 
the  moral  ideal  of  Christ,  our  faith  in  which  no 
uncertainty  as  to  the  authors  of  the  narratives 
or  mistrust  of  them  on  account  of  the  miraculous 
embellishment  common  in  biographies  of  saints, 


92  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

need  materially  affect.  The  moral  ideal  of  Christ 
conquered  the  ancient  world  when  the  Roman, 
mighty  in  character  as  well  as  in  arms,  was  its 
master.  It  has  lived  through  all  these  centuries, 
all  their  revolutions  and  convulsions,  the  usurpa- 
tion, tyranny  and  scandals  of  the  Pap- 
acy. ...  At  its  birth  it  encountered  alien 
and  hostile  influences,  Alexandrian  theosophy, 
Oriental  asceticism,  Byzantine  imperialism,  the 
theocracy  engendered  by  the  ambition  of  the 
monk,  Hilderbrand,  resulting  eventually  in  the 
Norman  raids  upon  England  and  Ireland,  the  civil 
wars  kindled  by  Papal  intrigue  in  Germany,  the 
extermination  of  the  Albigenses,  the  Inquisition, 
Alva's  tribunal  of  blood  in  the  Netherlands,  the 
massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  the  persecution  of 
the  Huguenots,  and  the  many  evils  which  Jesuit- 
ism has  wrought.  Through  all  this,  and  in  spite 
of  it  all,  Christian  character  has  preserved  itself, 
and  it  is  still  the  basis  of  the  world's  best  civiliza- 
tion. .  .  .  Whatever  may  become  of  our 
creeds  and  of  the  dogma,  so  plainly  human  in 
origin  as  are  some  of  them,  we  have  still  the 
Christian  ideal  of  character,  which  has  not  yet 
been  seriously  challenged,  does  not  depend  on  the 
miracle  or  dogma  for  its  claim  to  acceptance  and 
may  continue  to  unite  Christendom.  The  type 
of  character  set  forth  in  the  Gospel  history  is  an 
absolute  embodiment  of  love,  both  in  the  way  of 
action  and  affection,  crowned  by  the  highest  pos- 
sible exhibition  of  it  in  an  act  of  the  most  trans- 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  93 

cendent  self-devotion  to  the  interest  of  the  human 
race.  This  being  the  case,  it  is  difficult  to  see 
how  the  Christian  morality  can  ever  be  brought 
into  antagonism  with  the  moral  progress  of  man- 
kind ;  or  how  the  Christian  type  of  character  can 
ever  be  left  behind  by  the  course  of  human  de- 
velopment, lose  the  allegiance  of  the  moral  world, 
or  give  place  to  newly  emerging  and  higher  ideals. 
This  type,  it  would  appear,  being  perfect  will  be 
final.  The  moral  efforts  of  all  ages,  to  the  con- 
summation of  the  world,  will  be  efforts  to  realize 
this  character,  and  to  make  it  actually,  as  it  is 
potentially,  universal.  .  .  .  Humanity  as  it 
passes  through  phase  after  phase  of  the  historical 
movement,  may  advance  indefinitely  in  excellence, 
but  its  advance  will  be  an  indefinite  approxima- 
tion to  the  Christian  type." 


94  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 


Ill 

By  following  out  an  entirely  different  line  of 
inquiry,  I  find  that  this  selfsame  necessity  for  the 
coming  of  Christ  becomes  manifest,  and  that 
science  thus  witnesses  a  second  time,  and  with 
added  emphasis,  to  the  reasonableness  of  the 
Christian's  creed. 

There  is  no  theme  of  such  universal  interest 
about  which  there  is  so  much  confusion  of  thought 
as  that  of  the  nature  of  real  liberty  and  the  con- 
ditions of  its  maintenance.  There  is  a  multitude 
of  forces  of  widely  different  orders  at  work  in  the 
world.  We  can  not  see  them,  and  we  know  ab- 
solutely nothing  of  their  real  nature,  and  are 
made  aware  of  their  existence  only  by  certain 
effects  produced  on  matter.  Experiment  has  dis- 
closed that  under  certain  conditions  there  follow 
certain  effects.  Both  are  uniform  and  unchange- 
able. The  forces  lie  inert  and  hidden  until  the 
precise  conditions  are  reached,  and  then  work  un- 
swervingly in  accordance  with  certain  pre-estab- 
lished laws  of  their  being.  To  set  a  force  free, 
then,  is  simply  to  fulfill  certain  conditions,  and 
thus  remove  whatever  hinders  it  from  rendering 
in  its  thus  awakened  energy  an  implicit  obedience 
to  the  laws  established  over  it.  We  can  not  free 
it  from  such  laws,  and  it  manifests  neither  power 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  95 

nor  disposition  to  free  itself,  to  mold  matter  into 
any  different  form  or  for  any  different  purpose 
than  that  prescribed  in  its  Divine  commission. 
Between  the  particles  of  water,  for  example,  we 
can  discover  no  cohesive  attraction  or  but  the 
slightest ;  yet  remove  a  given  amount  of  heat  that 
now  holds  this  force  bound  and  hidden,  and  it  will 
spring  at  once  into  full  activity,  and  the  water 
will  become  a  block  of  solid  ice.  Another  force, 
and  a  marvelous  one,  also  makes  its  appearance. 
Those  particles  not  only  cohere  but  are  arranged 
in  set  patterns  along  predetermined  lines  of 
symmetry,  forming  geometrical  figures  of  great 
beauty  and  exactness.  In  the  forms  of  snow- 
flakes  we  recognize  a  Divine  fineness  of  touch  and 
flawless  finish.  The  crystalline  architect  just  as 
often  as  its  delicate  frost  palaces  are  torn  down 
will  build  them  again  untiringly  after  precisely  the 
same  models  and  under  precisely  the  same  con- 
ditions, so  prompt  is  its  obedience  to  law,  so  un- 
swerving its  fidelity  to  the  plans  and  specifications 
intrusted  to  it  by  the  Great  Master  Builder. 

Pass  that  water  as  vapor  through  a  heated 
tube  of  platinum,  and  the  water  will  be  at  once 
resolved  into  its  original  hydrogen  and  oxygen 
gases,  and  another  force  still — one  of  repulsion — 
will  bound  into  being,  and  so  Titanic  is  it  that 
you  will  fail  to  crowd  the  infinitesimal  atoms  of 
these  gases  together  again  though  you  apply 
twenty  tons'  pressure  to  the  square  inch.  But 
touch  them  with  fire,  and  they  will  fly  back  into 


96  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

each  other's  chemical  embrace  instantly,  and  be- 
come water,  as  before. 

We  thus  see  that  to  free  any  of  the  lower  forces 
is  not  to  release  them  from  law,  but  simply  from 
what  prevents  them  from  acting  in  strictest 
obedience  to  the  laws  which  have  been  established 
over  them. 

We  shall  find  the  same  principles  holding  true 
in  the  history  of  other  and  higher  forms  of  force. 
Inside  the  walls  of  a  seed  lies  concealed  a  germ- 
fairy  which  remains  inert,  a  chained  captive,  un- 
til definitely  prescribed  conditions  are  complied 
with.  Place  that  seed  in  the  proper  environment, 
surround  it  with  dew,  air,  soil,  and  sunlight,  and 
those  prison  walls  burst  asunder,  and  out  of  the 
crude  material  which  Nature  furnishes  the 
awakened  and  freed  force  constructs  for  itself, 
with  an  architectural  skill  that  is  marvelous  in  our 
eyes,  a  charming  palace-home, — it  may  be  the 
pure  white  chalice  of  a  lily,  or  the  richly  tinted 
and  perfumed  petals  of  a  rose,  or  the  stalwart, 
storm-defying  form  of  a  forest  oak.  There  is 
such  perfection  in  its  work,  such  profundity  of 
thought  in  it,  that  we  recognize  at  once  that  it 
is  carrying  out  plans  not  of  its  own  contriving, 
but  matured  in  the  deep  councils  of  Jehovah.  To 
set  it  free  is  simply  to  remove  whatever  hinders 
it  from  energizing  in  ways  predetermined  for  it, 
from,  strictly  obeying  the  laws  of  organization 
that  pertain  to  its  special  sphere  of  work.  It  is 
never  restive  under  Divine  command.  We  mortals 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  97 

can  never  tempt  it,  nor  can  we  drive  it  into  dis- 
obedience. The  germ-force  inside  an  apple  seed 
will  never  fashion  for  us  a  grapevine  or  a  sun- 
flower, but  a  tree  rather  of  a  species  like  that 
which  bore  it.  That  tree  will,  through  successive 
growing  seasons,  throw  out  its  banners  of  leaves 
and  add  branch  to  branch,  and  then,  when  the 
time  is  ripe,  burst  into  bloom  and  at  last  bend  its 
boughs  with  fruit  golden  with  the  rich  colorings 
of  autumnal  sunset  skies.  Through  just  such 
faithful  re-embodiments  by  law-abiding  forces 
have  God's  creative  thoughts  been  transmitted  in 
all  their  freshness  down  the  long  lapse  of  ages. 

It  will  be  further  observed  that  this  germinal 
force,  if  it  would  accomplish  its  purpose, — be  set 
free  and  kept  free — must  not  only  be  placed  in 
its  proper  environment,  but  be  absolute  master  of 
all  the  under  forces  that  can  in  any  way  either 
help  or  hinder  it  in  its  work.  It  lifts  its  material 
right  against  the  force  of  gravity,  fifty,  one  hun- 
dred, two  hundred  feet  into  mid-air,  and  then 
summons  the  force  of  cohesion  to  hold  it  there, 
in  some  instances  for  long  centuries  together.  In 
its  laboratory,  the  leaf,  it  takes  a  sunbeam,  and 
with  it  tears  in  pieces  carbonic  dioxide, — the  most 
stable  chemical  compound  known  to  science, — re- 
versing the  process  of  combustion.  When  you 
burn  coal  in  your  grate,  the  carbon  of  the  coal 
and  the  oxygen  of  the  air  unite  and  cling  to- 
gether with  so  firm  a  grasp  that  to  tear  them 
apart  again  the  chemist  must  employ  the  most 


98  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

powerful  agents,  carry  on  the  processes  in  his 
strongest  vessels  under  most  startling  manifesta- 
tions of  light  and  heat,  and  at  the  last  bar  and 
bolt  the  refractory  oxygen  in  a  strong  prison  by 
itself.  That  the  vegetative  force  accomplishes 
this  in  each  one  of  the  thousand  diminutive  and 
delicate  cells  of  a  single  leaf,  taking  the  carbon 
for  its  own  use  and  restoring  the  oxygen  to  the 
air,  demonstrates  to  us  how  absolute  is  its 
sovereignty  over  the  under  forces  that  enter  into 
the  borders  of  its  kingdom.  Its  freedom,  indeed 
its  very  life,  is  found  to  depend  upon  this 
sovereignty,  for  the  very  moment  it  relaxes  its 
hold  they  rise  in  mad  riot  and,  like  communists, 
proceed  to  tear  down  into  shapeless  heaps  of  dull 
dust  again  the  very  glory-touched  palace  they 
have  been  forced  to  construct  and  maintain. 

If  we  extend  our  inquiry  into  the  phenomena  of 
animal  vitality,  we  shall  find  that  liberty  means 
the  same,  is  won  and  held  in  precisely  the  same 
way.  Within  the  shell  of  an  egg,  as  within  the 
walls  of  a  seed,  a  germ-force  lies  hidden.  To 
arouse  it  and  set  it  free  the  egg  must  be  kept  at 
a  predetermined  temperature  and  for  a  predeter- 
mined period.  These  conditions  none  but  He  who 
prescribed  them  has  power  to  change.  When  the 
time  is  up,  the  shell  cracks  open,  and  out  steps 
a  wondrously  organized  living  creature  fashioned 
by  the  germ-force  out  of  a  mass  of  seemingly 
structureless  jelly. 

There  is  such  perfection  in  its  work,  such  wealth 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  99 

of  contrivance,  such  profound  knowledge  of  this 
complicate  world,  such  clear  vision  of  prophecy, 
we  can  but  conclude  that  within  its  tiny  window- 
less  workshop  it  has  been  strictly  following  out 
the  instructions  of  a  Divine  Master,  that  it  has 
been  free  simply  to  render  implicit  obedience  to 
Divine  law.  And  in  its  subsequent  history  we 
learn,  also,  that  it  remains  free  to  follow  out 
further  the  Divine  plan  only  on  condition  that  it 
maintains  a  mastery  over  the  under  forces;  that 
these  forces  are  hostile  to  it,  and  will  perform 
their  new  strange  tasks  only  so  long  as  they  are 
held  down  by  the  strong  arm  of  a  master.  There 
must  be  no  divided  throne,  no  toleration  of  in- 
surgents. The  vital  force  must  reign  through- 
out the  body  without  a  rival,  or  it  will  be  tram- 
meled in  its  action  and  eventually  pushed  out  of 
being.  So  soon  as  food  enters  our  bodies  and  is 
set  flowing  through  certain  appointed  channels, 
it  is  made  to  undergo  gradual  vitalization.  As  it 
passes  through  the  mouth  into  the  stomach,  then 
through  the  duodenum  and  down  the  smaller  in- 
testines, different  solvents  are  poured  in  upon  it — 
saliva,  gastric  juice,  bile,  pancreatic  fluid,  and 
mucous  secretions.  Whatever  stubbornly  refuses 
to  dissolve  under  their  influence  is  at  once  carried 
further  on  and  expelled  from  the  system.  The 
remainder  is  taken  up  into  hairlike  tubes  called 
the  lacteals,  and  by  them  emptied  into  the  thoracic 
duct,  thence  carried  through  the  aorta  to  the 
heart.  This  great  force  pump,  after  first  send- 


100  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

ing  it  to  the  lungs  for  oxidation,  distributes  it, 
now  thrilled  with  vital  power,  along  the  widely 
branching  arterial  courses  everywhere,  far  and 
near,  to  replenish  bone  and  muscle  and  cartilage 
and  tendon  and  nerve  fiber;  for  every  time  we 
move,  every  time  we  evolve  a  thought,  we  break 
down  some  tissue,  and  its  waste  must  be  made 
good  from  the  nutritive  principles  in  the  blood. 
Every  atom  that  thus  loses  its  vitality,  that  has 
been  wrested  from  the  grasp  of  the  organizing 
force  and  has  fallen  under  the  sway  of  the  under 
chemical  forces,  must  be  driven  out,  or  pyaemia 
— blood  poisoning — will  ensue;  and  if  any  local 
insurrection  is  not  promptly  put  down,  it  will 
widen  into  revolution,  and  eventually  end  in  death. 
To  effect  this  expulsion,  the  body  is  interlaced 
with  a  network  of  canals,  called  lymphatics,  form- 
ing an  internal,  decomposing,  absorbent  system, 
some  of  which  empty  into  the  great  veins ;  but  vast 
multitudes  open  their  discharging  mouths  at  once 
on  the  surface  of  the  skin,  three  thousand  to  every 
square  inch,  so  essential  is  it  to  afford  ready  and 
swift  exit  to  whatever  the  organizing  force  can 
no  longer  control. 

If  we  pursue  further  our  investigations,  and 
enter  the  region  of  animal  instinct,  so  full  of  the 
marvelous,  we  find  the  same  general  principles 
prevailing.  Liberty  is  secured  and  maintained  in 
precisely  the  same  way.  Animals  are  born 
specialists.  Their  mental  and  bodily  furnishings 
are  complemental  and  specific.  The  sphere  of 


WAS  CHRIST 

each  is  a  narrow  one,  but  it  knows  precisely  what 
to  do  and  how  to  do  it,  and  has  just  the  tools 
to  do  it  with.  When  a  bee,  for  example,  sallies 
forth  from  its  cradle,  it  is  provided  with  a  full 
business  outfit — wax  pouch,  pollen  basket,  honey 
stomach,  trowel-shaped  mandibles,  a  tireless  wing, 
a  discriminating  and  most  powerful  scent,  and 
complete  working  plans  for  those  hexagonal  stor- 
age cells  that  in  point  of  capacity  and  economy 
of  wax  and  strength  of  wall  bear  the  most  search- 
ing test  of  the  differential  calculus.  There  is 
not  a  creature  that  is  not  equipped  either  with 
some  peculiar  organ  or  with  some  organ 
peculiarly  modified,  accompanied  with  a  corre- 
sponding peculiar  instinctive  impulse  for  using 
it.  The  impulse  and  the  organ  are  but  comple- 
mental  parts  of  a  single  plan,  and  that  plan 
Divine.  The  thinking  has  been  done  for  the 
creature,  not  by  it.  Should  it  step  outside  its 
prescribed  circle,  fail  to  follow  the  lead  of  its 
instinct,  it  would  become  a  helpless  prey  to  hostile 
forces,  its  only  strength  and  safety  and  real  free- 
dom being  found  in  strict  obedience  to  the  laws 
of  its  organism.  Should  it  not  do  what  God  has 
appointed  in  God's  prescribed  way,  in  God's 
chosen  time,  and  with  the  tools  God  has  himself 
furnished,  it  would  become  the  helpless  slave  of 
circumstance  and  meet  with  certain  and  swift 
destruction. 

Let  us  now  direct  our  inquiry  to  our  own  com- 
plex   spiritual    life    of    meditations,    sensibilities, 


•1.08  .WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

and  moral  choices,  and  see  of  what  liberty  con- 
sists, how  it  can  be  obtained,  and  how  in  these 
highest  known  forms  of  force  it  can  be  made  a 
permanent  possession. 

When  man  stepped  upon  the  scene  I  believe 
there  was  a  radically  new  departure  in  creation ; 
that  he  came  endowed  with  that  of  which  before 
there  was  only  a  semblance,  a  dim  prophecy,  on 
the  earth;  that  to  him  alone  was  vouchsafed  self- 
consciousness,  the  clear  light  of  reason,  perfect 
freedom  of  choice,  moral  discernment,  and  a  sense 
of  accountability.  These,  however,  are  but 
superadded  gifts,  for  man  is  closely  linked  with 
all  the  lower  forces,  forms  part  of  the  same  gen- 
eral plan  we  have  been  considering,  indeed  was 
designed  in  the  Divine  councils  to  be  its  grand 
culmination.  Note  the  features  of  this  plan, 
first  in  the  nature  and  history  of  the  soul's 
meditations.  We  find  that  certain  predetermined 
conditions  must  be  fulfilled  before  the  currents 
of  living  thought  are  set  free  from  their  foun- 
tains, for,  through  one  or  more  of  the  five  senses, 
communication  must  be  opened  with  the  outside 
physical  and  mental  worlds.  This  done,  the  mind 
thus  awakened  and  liberated,  its  subsequent 
activity,  is  as  we  have  already  shown,  as  rigidly 
regular  as  that  of  the  chemical  or  crystalline  or 
germ-forces  already  considered,  the  processes 
being  carried  on  under  a  system  of  unchangeable 
laws  Divinely  established,  the  prerogative  of  the 
human  will  reaching  solely  to  the  choice  of  themes, 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  103 

to  the  selection  of  the  fields  of  labor.  There  is 
no  other  liberty  of  choice  than  this,  and  even 
this  depends  for  its  maintenance  on  the  control 
exercised  over  the  under  forces,  upon  the  health- 
ful condition  of  the  delicate  tissues  of  the  brain 
and  all  the  other  bodily  organs  that  are  linked 
with  it,  and  upon  the  degree  of  moderation 
secured  among  that  eager  throng  of  appetites, 
passions,  and  propensities  which,  for  far-reach- 
ing moral  purposes,  have  been  placed  in  our 
keeping.  We  have  found  upon  experiment  that 
we  are  wholly  powerless  to  stop  the  flow  of 
thought  once  begun,  that  all  we  can  do  is  to 
change  the  course  of  the  current.  We  have 
power  to  direct  and  hold  the  attention,  that  is 
all.  Our  thoughts  of  meditation  and  reflection 
are  generated  under  the  laws  of  association  and 
suggestion  wholly  independent  of  any  direct  act 
of  the  will.  The  bodily  senses  are,  as  I  have 
said,  the  mind's  only  avenues  of  communication 
with  the  world  outside.  They  become  available 
solely  through  strict  obedience  to  physical  law, 
which  we  have  no  power  either  to  abrogate  or 
modify,  and  what  thus  comes  to  the  mind  from 
nature  or  art,  social  intercourse  or  literature,  de- 
pends upon  its  natural  receptive  capacity  as 
modified  by  culture.  The  same  landscape  painted 
on  the  retina  of  a  poet's  eye  conveys  a  message 
of  widely  different  import  from  that  conveyed 
when  it  is  painted  on  that  of  a  plain,  matter- 
of-fact  man  of  affairs.  The  laws  of  suggestion 


104  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

and  of  association  will  determine  what  that  im- 
port shall  be.  It  is  under  these  laws  that  the 
vanished  past  of  circumstance  or  of  thought  is 
called  back  into  consciousness;  it  is  under  them 
that  the  imagination,  which  can  combine,  but  not 
create,  gathers  its  materials  for  its  castles,  de- 
termines how  those  materials  shall  be  placed  in 
the  walls  and  what  styles  of  architecture  th6se 
walls  shall  assume.  Processes  of  reasoning  are 
carried  on  in  precisely  the  same  way.  Our  con- 
trol over  our  mental  operations  reaches  no 
further,  as  I  have  said,  than  directing  and  hold- 
ing the  attention.  Here  our  power  and  our  re- 
sponsibility both  begin  and  end.  The  measure 
of  this  power  is  the  measure  of  mental  liberty; 
with  its  decline  begins  our  mental  enslavement. 
If  we  concentrate  our  thoughts  too  intently  and 
too  long  on  any  one  theme,  we  incur  the  risk  of 
losing  our  power  of  directing  them  into  other 
channels  and  dangerously  verge  on  monomania. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  we  indulge  in  inattention, 
suffer  our  thoughts  to  wander  aimlessly,  we 
weaken  our  concentrative  power,  and  are  in 
danger  of  losing  it  altogether,  and  thus  sinking 
into  mental  imbecility.  The  golden  mean  of 
healthful  self-poise  lies  between  these  two  ex- 
tremes. It  is  sadly  true  that  this  perfect  in- 
tellectual liberty  is  rarely,  if  ever,  reached  on 
this  planet.  Bodily  diseases,  business  perplexi- 
ties, financial  losses,  family  bereavements,  pas- 
sionate longings,  feelings  of  envy,  jealousy,  or 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  105 

revenge,  the  many  undue  excitements  to  which 
our  lives  are  liable,  have  made  every  one  of  us  at 
times  victims  of  morbid  moods,  certain  thoughts 
taking  possession  to  the  exclusion  of  everything 
else,  and  ruling  us  as  with  a  rod  of  iron.  How 
often,  too,  we  suffer  our  minds  to  go  wool-gather- 
ing, through  sheer  indolence  or  shiftlessness,  un- 
til we  find  it  well-nigh  impossible  to  call  our 
thoughts  in  from  their  aimless  wanderings  and 
give  needful  heed  to  the  stern  duties  of  the  hour! 

If  what  I  have  stated  of  our  intellectual  life 
be  true — and  any  one  can  readily  verify  it  by 
recalling  his  own  experiences — thoughts  are 
evolved  and  grouped  about  any  chosen  theme  with 
as  perfect  regularity,  as  strict  conformity  to  un- 
changeable law,  as  is  observed  when  salt  atoms 
crystallize,  or  the  structureless  contents  of  an 
egg  are  changed  into  the  organized  body  of  a 
bird.  To  set  mental  force  free,  then,  and  keep 
it  free,  is  not  to  release  it  from  Divine  law,  but, 
by  fulfilling  certain  prescribed  conditions  and  by 
securing  and  maintaining  sovereignty  over  the 
under  forces,  to  remove  whatever  hinders  it  from 
energizing  in  those  precise  modes  established  at 
the  first  by  Him  whose  fiat  brought  it  into  being. 

Within .  the  soul  lie  dormant,  also,  wondrous 
germinal  affections  and  aspirations,  purposes  and 
far-reaching  hopes,  waiting  compliance  with  cer- 
tain fixed  conditions  before  their  fetters  fall  and 
they  begin  to  grow  into  the  permanent  moral 
traits  of  the  soul.  There  is  required  for  this 


106  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

quickening  the  gentle  influences  of  sunbeams  of 
sympathy.  To  the  joy-light  of  a  mother's  smile, 
to  the  distilling  tears  of  her  quick  pity  or  of  her 
overburdened  solicitude,  to  the  brooding  acts  of 
her  ever-watchful  care,  to  the  tender  tones  of  her 
affection,  the  spirit  promptly  responds.  The 
greater  the  confidence  inspired  in  the  child,  the 
deeper  is  the  intimacy  and  the  more  free  and  fre- 
quent the  interchange  of  thought  and  feeling; 
and  if  this  close  spiritual  union  is  continued,  if 
the  mother  holds  the  confidence  and  love  of  the 
child  through  the  years,  she  becomes  to  him  a 
heroine,  a  model,  an  inspiration,  her  influence 
reaching  down  into  his  innermost  desire,  vitaliz- 
ing his  whole  spiritual  being.  He  tells  her  every- 
thing, and  in  return  receives  the  smile  and  tear 
and  counseling  word.  Under  the  law  of  spiritual 
assimilation,  which  is  dominant  when  soul  is 
linked  to  soul,  he  gradually  grows  into  her  moral 
likeness.  Here  is  no  compulsion,  no  deadening 
of  nature.  His  whole  being  is  roused  rather  into 
intensest  life,  into  the  fullest  freedom,  her 
sympathetic  response  calling  out  the  deepest 
emotion  and  motive.  Reserve  and  indifference 
are  all  gone.  The  charm  of  her  personal  pres- 
ence is  farthest  removed  from  a  feverish  fascina- 
tion. His  soul  is  simply  quickened  and  freed  as 
is  the  germ-force  in  the  seed  when  planted  in  a 
sun-kissed  soil. 

These  promptings  to  hero-worship,  this  quick 
response  to  sympathy,  this  molding  of  the  char- 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  107 

acter  by  the  subtile  influences  that  go  out  from 
intimately  communing  souls,  this  directive  power 
of  the  stronger  spirit  over  the  weaker  and  less 
mature,  this  enlargement  of  liberty,  this  quicken- 
ing of  impulses,  this  wondrous  vitalization,  thus 
begun  in  the  child  through  companionship  with 
the  mother,  is  repeated  over  and  over  again  in  the 
intimacies  of  after-life.  The  friendships  and 
love  unions  of  the  soul,  the  choosing  of  great 
leaders  in  peace  and  war,  in  church  and  state, 
the  canonizing  of  the  objects  of  affection,  the 
wonderful  transforming  power  these  chosen 
heroes  of  hearts  have  displayed  in  the  world,  the 
intense  enthusiasm,  the  profound  devotion  they 
have  enkindled,  the  quickening  they  have  caused 
of  the  world's  pulse,  show  beyond  question  that 
it  is  a  universal  and  deep-seated  instinct  of  the 
heart  to  idealize  those  who  have  won  their  way  to 
intimate  companionship,  or  have  become  en- 
throned as  loved  leaders,  and  that,  because  of  this 
instinct,  hero-worship  has  ever  been,  and  will 
ever  be,  under  the  law  of  spiritual  assimilation, 
the  greatest  plastic  power  at  work  in  the  world. 
As  in  the  intellectual  life  we  can  by  the  will 
direct  and  fix  the  attention,  but  not  stop  the  flow 
of  thought  or  change  the  modes  of  its  genera- 
tion under  laws  of  association  and  suggestion,  so 
in  the  spiritual  life  we  can  choose  who  shall  be  our 
intimate  companions,  to  whom  we  will  uncurtain 
our  inner  lives.  But  the  choice  once  made,  the 
intimacy  once  begun,  we  shall  inevitably  grow 


108  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

into  each  other's  likeness,  the  stronger,  more 
mature  spirit,  the  one  of  more  pronounced  posi- 
tive personality,  having  the  greater  plastic 
power.  Just  so  soon  as  the  free  interchange  be- 
gins, the  process  of  assimilation  begins  under 
laws  that  are  immutable. 

As  soon  as  the  soul  feels  vitalizing  power  from 
communion  with  a  pure  and  benign  spirit,  it  at 
once  sets  about  self-mastery,  control  over  all  the 
under  forces,  the  passions,  appetites,  propensi- 
ties, every  form  of  selfishness  whose  tendency  is 
to  enslave,  and  the  growth  is  upward  and  outward 
toward  a  likeness  to  the  superior  and  freer  spirit. 
The  converse  is  equally  true.  Intimate  commun- 
ion with  lower  spirits,  in  whom  ignoble  thoughts 
are  cherished,  will  result  through  the  same  law 
of  assimilation,  if  continued,  in  increased  enslave- 
ment and  finally  in  moral  death. 

In  view  of  these  laws  that  thus  control  in  the 
development  of  character,  is  it  not  very  significant 
that  the  historic  Christ  asked  to  be  received  into 
intimacy,  to  become  the  chosen  hero  of  hearts? 
As  the  affections  cannot  be  enforced,  freedom 
being  their  vital  air,  he  has  ventured  no  further 
than  to  stand  at  the  door  and  knock,  asking 
simply  to  have  us  uncurtain  to  him  our  inner 
lives.  Is  it  not  significant  that  he  thus  mani- 
festly craves  our  affections,  assures  us  that  he  is 
deeply  interested  in  every  worthy  thing  that  in- 
terests us,  offers  in  return  his  loving  presence, 
and  desires  all  barriers  to  be  forever  torn  away? 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  109 

Is  it  not  because  he  is  profoundly  aware  that 
when  he  is  thus  received  into  intimacy,  soul  touch- 
ing soul,  the  germinal  spiritual  forces  will  at  once 
begin  to  build  up  character,  through  processes 
of  assimilation,  under  the  immutable  laws  of 
growth?  Does  he  not  evidently  desire  this  close 
relationship,  that  he  may  transform  us  as  soil  is 
transformed  into  rosebuds,  and  eggs  into  plumed 
songsters,  knowing  full  well  that,  if  we  once  let 
him  into  our  hearts  and  cherish  his  presence  there, 
the  growth  into  his  likeness  will  as  inevitably 
ensue  as,  when  we  drop  the  seed  in  rich,  moist, 
sun-warmed  soil,  or  place  the  egg  in  a  befitting 
atmosphere,  a  plant  or  an  animal  is  built  up  by 
the  constructive  forces  within?  Is  not  such  a 
world-wide  need  a  most  sure  prophecy  of  the  com- 
ing of  some  one  fitted  and  willing  to  supply  that 
need?  What  pilgrim  spirit  so  worthy  of  a  wel- 
come as  the  historic  Christ  has  ever  visited  this 
earth,  and  knocked,  and  waited  at  the  door  of  the 
human  heart?  What  spirit  so  worthy  of  admis- 
sion to  its  most  sacred  inner  sanctuary?  What 
one  into  the  charmed  circle  of  whose  presence  it 
has  been  so  distinguished  a  privilege  to  enter, 
who  has  come  so  admirably  fitted  in  so  many  ways 
to  draw  all  men  unto  him?  Who  but  he  could 
answer  to  this  need,  and  thus  fulfill  the  prophecy? 
He  has,  in  the  first  place,  shown  an  interest  in 
us  under  such  varied  and  trying  circumstances 
that  we  can  never  for  a  moment  question  its 
genuineness,  its  depth,  or  its  permanency.  He 


110  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

has  given  evidence  that  he  is  moved  not  merely 
by  some  general  feeling  of  friendliness  for  the 
erring,  suffering,  longing  multitudes  that  throng 
this  planet,  but  assures  us  that  he  knows  each 
one  personally,  and  that,  because  he  does,  he 
stands  ready  to  brave  danger,  endure  fatigue, 
suffer  privation,  and  actually  desires  to  meet  us 
face  to  face,  to  look  through  our  kindling  or  tear- 
dimmed  eyes  in  upon  our  very  souls,  to  watch  the 
sunshine  and  shadow  of  our  most  secret  thoughts. 
He  wants  to  be  welcomed  warmly,  to  have  us  feel 
that  everything  that  is  of  interest  to  us  is  of  in- 
terest to  him.  We  all  know  that  no  intimate 
companionship  can  exist  without  an  assurance  of 
this  personal  attachment;  that  just  so  soon  as  we 
suspect  that  any  of  our  earthly  friends  have  lost 
their  relish  for  our  society,  listen  listlessly  and 
grow  wooden  in  their  voices  when  they  make  re- 
ply, a  deathlike  chill,  a  spirit  of  reticence,  comes 
over  us,  the  meetings  grow  less  frequent,  the  con- 
versation drops  into  empty,  conventional  common- 
place, the  friendship  cools  into  formal  acquaint- 
ance and,  it  may  be,  terminates  in  bitter  estrange- 
ment. Who  has  not  had  the  iron  thus  enter  his 
soul?  There  is  always  more  or  less  of  prudent 
reserve  in  earthly  friendships,  a  questioning  of 
how  far  one  may  presume  upon  the  affections  of 
another,  so  painfully  mindful  are  we  of  our 
limitations.  No  such  barriers  can  ever  exist  be- 
tween us  and  Christ.  He  takes  pains  to  assure 
us  that  there  is  not  one  of  such  low  degree  as  to 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  Ill 

be  unworthy  of  his  personal  regard.  Our  de- 
ficiencies, however  great,  in  bodily  attractions,  or 
social  rank,  or  worldly  possessions,  in  mental  en- 
dowment or  culture  or  conversational  power,  need 
not  in  the  least  discourage  us  from  aspiring  to 
intimacy  with  him,  for  he  asks  for  our  loving 
trust  and  fellowship,  not  because  of  what  we  are 
now,  but  of  what  we  may  become,  ages  hence, 
under  the  marvelously  transforming  power  of  his 
personal  presence.  Here  is  a  vantage-ground  no 
earthly  friend  can  have.  Christ  looks  at  us  with 
the  piercing  eye  of  a  God  in  the  white  light  of 
eternity.  The  grand  possibilities  of  the  spiritual 
germ-forces  locked  up  within  us  are  definitely 
outlined  in  his  far  glance  of  prophecy,  as  if  they 
already  were  accomplished  facts.  He  can  see  the 
flashing  diamond  into  which  the  loose  dust  of  car- 
bon at  his  feet  can  be  compressed.  He  can  see 
the  delicately  fashioned  flower  petal,  with  its 
faultless  lines  of  grace  and  exquisite  coloring, 
into  which  the  rude  elements  in  soil  and  air  may 
be  molded  at  the  talismanic  touch  of  life.  To  us 
it  does  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be.  He, 
however,  not  only  sees,  but  assures  us  that  he 
sees,  even  in  the  humblest  of  those  who  truly  love 
him  here,  the  coming  heirs  and  joint  heirs  with 
him  to  fadeless  crowns.  Under  his  plastic  power, 
through  this  law  of  spiritual  assimilation,  he  is 
confident  that  he  can  so  develop  our  possibilities, 
if  we  will  seek  his  society,  as  eventually  to  render 
our  companionship  with  him  both  delightful  and 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

lasting.  What  soul  does  not  stand  in  pressing 
need  of  such  a  friend?  Through  whom  else  can 
such  a  need  be  met? 

We  are  assured  not  only  that  Christ  is  thus 
personally  interested  in  us,  but  that  he  knows 
us  through  and  through.  In  his  public  ministry 
he  frequently  demonstrated  his  power  to  discern 
the  most  secret  intents  of  the  heart.  How  im- 
perfectly we  know  our  friends,  or  they  us !  We 
try  to  draw  aside  the  hiding  curtains,  but  can- 
not; and  because  of  this  unavoidable  partial  con- 
cealment, the  interchange  of  sympathy  is  seldom, 
if  ever,  full  and  free.  This  element  of  embarrass- 
ment never  enters  into  our  friendship  with  Christ. 

Again  he,  by  his  self-sacrificing  spirit,  inspires 
in  us  a  degree  of  confidence  our  earthly  compan- 
ions never  can.  We  feel  perfectly  safe  in  trust- 
ing our  most  cherished  secrets  with  him,  fear  of 
coming  estrangement  or  of  any  advantage  ever 
being  taken  of  anything  spoken  in  confidence 
never  once  entering  our  thought.  By  his  ab- 
solutely unselfish  devotion  he  naturally  awakens 
in  his  true  disciples  a  love  transcending  every 
other.  This  explains  his  saying,  "He  that  loveth 
father  or  mother  more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of 
me."  He  felt  that  he  had  those  special  gifts 
which  brought  him  naturally  into  closer  personal 
relations  with  those  worthy  of  him;  that  he  had 
by  his  sacrifices  commended  himself  to  their  con- 
fiding love  more  fully  than  any  other.  He  de- 
sired only  his  natural  place  in  our  hearts.  His 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

purpose  was  not  to  supplant  home  affections,  but 
to  so  vitalize  and  sanctify  them  that  they  would 
not  only  weather  the  storms  of  time,  but  outlast 
the  grave.  This  supreme  affection,  this  com- 
plete self-surrender,  in  that  it  is  cordial  and  ac- 
cording to  nature,  instead  of  enslaving,  liberates 
us.  Do  we  curtail  our  freedom  when  we  give  our 
hearts  to  our  friends,  our  heroes,  or  our  saints? 
Are  not  our  souls  thus  stirred  as  never  before,  all 
their  forces  aroused  into  most  pleasurable  ac- 
tivity? Indeed,  only  a  Christ  can  truly  set  us 
free;  for  in  none  other  do  we  find  so  perfect  an 
ideal,  a  life  without  a  flaw,  a  living  revelation  of 
God's  yearning  love.  With  no  other  one  can  we 
come  into  such  close  personal  relations,  whose 
heartfelt  interest  in  each  one  of  us  is  so  unmis- 
takable, whose  insight  into  our  inner  selves  is  so 
complete,  to  whom  we  feel  that  our  intimate 
friendship  will  be  so  welcome  and  so  unselfishly 
cherished.  We  are  constitutionally  social  beings. 
We  cannot  stand  alone.  Companionship  and 
hero-worship  are  the  inborn  demands  of  our  na- 
ture. The  purer  and  more  unselfish  the  one 
whom  we  admit  to  intimacy,  the  more  complete 
through  his  influence  becomes  our  self-mastery ; 
the  formative  spiritual  powers  within  us  the  more 
sovereign  over  the  under  forces  and  the  more 
subject  to  the  upper  and  Divine.  How  imminent 
the  danger  to  which  we  are  exposed,  how  impera- 
tive the  necessity  for  the  power  of  a  Christ's  per- 
sonal presence ! 


114  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

We  have  seen  how  the  under  chemical  forces 
within  our  physical  organisms  are  slaves,  not  will- 
ing servitors,  and  that  they  seem  to  be  on  the 
watch  for  any  weakening  of  the  sovereign 
vitality;  for  so  soon  as  it  in  the  least  loses  its 
control,  they  break  out  into  open  rebellion,  bent 
on  devastation  and  death.  Hostile  forces  also 
wait  outside,  ready  to  rush  in  at  any  unguarded 
portal.  The  air  is  full  of  the  eggs  and  seeds  of 
parasites,  which  find  a  rich  nexus  in  any  part  not 
thoroughly  vitalized  to  hatch  out,  and  multiply 
by  myriads,  into  miasmic  fevers  and  contagious 
diseases.  Scientists  have  discovered  sixty -six  or 
more  different  species  of  these  parasitic  foes  that 
prey  on  human  flesh.  Nothing  but  a  most 
vigorous  vitality  can  repel  and  destroy  these  at- 
tacking armies. 

In  our  intellectual  life  we  have  found  ourselves 
equally  exposed,  symptoms  of  disorder  con- 
stantly appearing, — lack  of  power  to  hold  or 
direct  the  attention,  thoughts  crowding  them- 
selves into  undue  prominence,  loss  of  mental  per- 
spective, a  weakened  memory,  a  confused  reason, 
a  wild  and  wayward  fancy.  But  especially  in 
our  emotional  and  moral  nature  have  we  realized 
the  need  of  the  watchful  eye  and  the  strong  hand 
of  a  master.  This  supremacy  can  be  maintained 
only  by  a  willing  obedience  to  the  higher  law  of 
the  conscience  and  the  revealed  will  of  God 
through  the  inspiriting,  vitalizing  power  of 
Christ's  pure  life  and  sympathetic  presence. 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  115 

Philosophy  and  history  both  affirm  this. 
Every  individual  from  the  first,  as  we  have  re- 
marked, needs  outside  assistance.  Every  mind 
and  heart  must  have  kindred  minds  and  hearts 
of  wider  culture  and  higher  virtues  to  instruct 
and  incite.  A  recluse  from  birth  would  be  a 
drooling  idiot  or  a  wild  bushman.  History  has 
no  record  of  any  tribe  of  savages  ever  lifting  it- 
self unaided  into  civilization.  Surely  the  moral 
world  is  now  too  seriously  diseased,  and  has  been 
as  far  back  as  we  have  any  knowledge,  to  throw 
off  the  incubus  by  the  strength  of  its  own  vitality. 
All  are  enslaved,  and  all  may  be  freed,  but  only 
through  some  life-touch  with  a  Christ.  Under 
his  benign  influence  the  progress  of  the  world  is 
toward  this  higher  sovereignty.  Sciences  and 
arts  are  discovering  and  conquering  and  utiliz- 
ing Nature's  forces.  Diseases  are  becoming 
more  thoroughly  understood,  and  are  being 
checked  by  more  efficient  remedies,  or  guarded 
against  through  wiser  sanitary  regulations. 
Literatures  and  schools  are  throwing  off  the  in- 
cubus of  ignorance  and  superstition,  governments 
are  advancing  toward  larger  social  and  religious 
liberty,  and  there  is  to-day  among  the  leading 
peoples  of  the  earth  a  more  free  and  healthful 
development  than  ever  before  of  that  individuality 
which  is  a  Divine  and  priceless  gift  to  every 
man.  It  is  to  Christ's  influence  we  can  look,  and 
to  that  alone,  for  a  final  and  full  unfetter- 
ing of  the  human  spirit  from  the  enthralling 


116  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

power   of   all   the   under    and   the   outer   forces. 

What  a  proffer  Christ  has  here  made  us — a 
confidential  companionship  with  himself,  the  up- 
lifting power  of  his  personal  presence,  the  nour- 
ishing sunshine  of  his  sympathy,  privilege  to 
grow  into  his  likeness!  We  are  at  a  loss  to  ex- 
plain this  condescension,  except  on  the  ground 
of  our  immortality  and  his  far  look  into  the 
eternal  years. 

His  invitation  is  to  every  one.  In  this  uni- 
versality of  sympathy  and  power  to  help  he  stands 
alone.  He  comes  to  those  of  sick  and  bruised 
bodies,  saying  to  them:  "I  too  have  passed 
through  like  bitter  experiences,  have  been  racked 
and  torn  with  pain,  and  know  how  hard  it  is  to 
bear,  but  I  also  know  what  wholesome  discipline 
there  is  in  it,  what  power  to  purify.  Keep  good 
cheer,  for  'whom  the  Lord  loveth  he  chasteneth.' ' 

His  invitation  is  to  the  neglected,  whose  hearts 
have  been  saddened  by  lack  of  appreciation,  who 
feel  themselves  walled  out  from  those  whose  love 
and  companionship  they  crave.  Upon  their 
wounded  spirits  his  words  fall  like  balm.  "I 
came  to  my  own,  and  my  own  received  me  not. 
My  good  deeds  were  evil  spoken  of.  Despite  my 
oft-repeated  explanations,  my  miracles  of  power 
and  acts  of  love,  I  was  lamentably  misunderstood 
and  maligned  until  after  my  death.  When  my 
dark  trial  hour  came,  those  whom  I  had  chosen 
as  my  disciples  and  bosom  friends  forsook  me  and 
fled.  Wait  patiently,  for  I  can  assure  you  there 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  117 

will  be  a  glorious  uncurtaining  by  and  by." 
His  invitation  is  to  the  poor,  the  unsuccessful, 
the  persecuted,  those  whose  plans  have  failed 
from  causes  which  they  could  not  control,  those 
who  have  struggled  with  a  worthy  purpose  but 
struggled  against  a  resistless  tide.  His  earthly 
career  had  many  things  in  common  with  theirs, 
too,  for  he  was  by  his  contemporaries  very 
naturally  pronounced  a  failure.  He  added  noth- 
ing to  his  wordly  stores,  had  not  a  roof  to  cover 
him,  gained  no  social  position,  was  unpopular 
with  the  powerful  and  rich.  He  endured  priva- 
tion, won  none  of  the  world's  reputed  prizes. 
His  very  faithfulness  blocked  his  way  to  personal 
preferment.  His  persistent  determination  to  re- 
claim the  fallen,  rebuke  sin,  courageously  to  state 
and  stand  by  his  convictions,  finally  cost  him  his 
fair  fame,  brought  down  upon  him  the  anathemas 
of  the  very  rulers  of  the  synagogue,  and  at  last 
nailed  him  to  the  cross,  to  suffer  and  die  between 
convicted  thieves. 

His  message  is  to  the  tempted.  He  had  many 
a  desperate  struggle  with  appetite  and  passion. 
He  fought  no  mock  battles.  His  soul  was 
racked  with  many  misgivings  at  thought  of  the 
terrible  ordeal  through  which  he  knew  he  was 
destined  to  pass,  and  these  misgivings  never  per- 
manently left  him  until  the  very  morning  of  his 
crucifixion,  after  an  all-night  agony  in  Geth- 
semane. 

He  comes  to  those  who  mourn,  with  a  heart 


118  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

that  has  felt  bereavement,  with  eyes  that  have 
filled  with  tears  for  the  dead.  He  comes  to  the 
timid,  the  sick  and  dying,  this  time  with  reassur- 
ing power,  for  in  his  many  miracles  he  proved 
himself  Lord  over  Nature.  Her  forces  were 
ready  servitors  of  his  sovereign  will.  By  his 
touch,  fevers  fled,  the  lame  walked,  lepers  were 
cleansed.  At  his  word,  disordered  minds  were 
blessed  with  returning  reason,  and  even  the  dead 
heard  his  call  and  felt  the  thrill  of  life  again. 
From  the  grave  he  himself  rose  victor.  He 
proved  that  he  indulged  in  no  idle  boast  when  he 
said,  "I  have  power  to  lay  down  my  life,  and  I 
have  power  to  take  it  again."  Christ  is  thus 
not  only  a  sympathizing  but  an  all-powerful 
friend.  Whatever  the  nature  of  the  need,  he  can 
supply  it.  There  is  no  pain  or  danger  or  dis- 
aster from  which  he  cannot  free  us,  and  will  when 
it  is  best.  Just  as  soon  as  we  turn  toward  him 
with  loving  confidence,  and  say,  "Thy  will  be 
done,"  whatever  chills  or  cripples  or  enslaves  our 
spirits,  clogs  their  powers,  or  hinders  their  de- 
velopment, melts  away  in  the  sunshine  of  his 
sympathy.  No  exigency  for  help  so  pressing 
that  he  is  not  able  to  meet  it.  He  thus  becomes 
our  great  liberator,  rock  of  defense,  inspiration, 
comforter.  He  enables  us  to  beat  down  the 
restive  under  forces  which  lie  in  wait  to  enslave 
and  destroy.  He  does  not  free  us  from  the  pain, 
but  from  its  power  to  dull  the  sensibilities;  not 
from  poverty  and  care,  but  from  their  tendency 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  119 

to  narrow  and  harden;  not  from  calumny,  but 
from  the  maddening  poison  in  its  sting;  not 
from  disappointment,  but  from  the  hopelessness 
and  bitterness  of  thought  which  it  so  often  en- 
genders. 

We  attain  unto  this  perfect  liberty  when  we 
rise  superior  to  untoward  circumstances,  triumph 
over  the  pain  and  weakness  of  disease,  over  un- 
just criticism,  the  wreck  of  earthly  hopes,  over 
promptings  to  envy,  every  sordid  and  selfish  de- 
sire, every  unhallowed  longing,  every  doubt  of 
God's  wisdom  and  love  and  kindly  care,  when  we 
rise  into  an  atmosphere  of  undaunted  moral 
courage,  of  restful  content,  of  child-like  trust, 
of  holy,  all-conquering  calm.  We  should  wel- 
come the  discipline  God  sees  fit  to  send.  Christ 
could  not  escape  the  cross  and  wear  the  crown. 
It  is  enough  for  the  servant  that  he  be  as  his 
master,  the  disciple  as  his  Lord.  We  must  fight, 
at  times  fight  desperately,  and  wear  battle  scars. 
In  that  ever-memorable  farewell,  Christ  said, 
"My  peace  I  give  unto  you,  not  as  the  world 
giveth."  This  was  the  fruit  of  struggle,  the 
calm  that  comes  only  from  the  perfect  obedience 
of  consecrated  love. 

How  priceless  that  trustful  serenity  in  the 
midst  of  life's  reverses  and  dangers  and  cares 
and  separations !  How  does  the  freed  soul  rise 
on  widespread  pinions  till  the  clouds  of  time  roll 
their  wind-driven  billows  beneath  it,  and  it  basks 
in  the  bright  smile  of  God's  promise!  Do  you 


120  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

ask,  doubtingly,  Who  have  attained  to  this 
liberty?  Many  have:  those  early  Christians,  who, 
driven  by  relentless  persecution,  dwelt  in  the 
catacombs  of  Rome ;  martyrs,  who  died  with  songs 
on  their  lips ;  the  sainted  Stephen,  whose  face 
shone  as  the  face  of  an  angel;  Paul,  whose  ring- 
ing words  of  cheer  have  for  nineteen  centuries 
been  heard  round  the  world.  All  may.  It  is 
offered  to  all.  Life's  storms  have  broken  over 
the  souls  of  men,  and  will  break  again,  but  a 
Christ  has  proffered  an  all-sheltering  love. 

A  flood  of  light  is  here  thrown  on  two  most 
remarkable  sayings  of  this  marvelous  Being: 
"If  the  Son,  therefore,  shall  make  you  free,  ye 
shall  be  free  indeed";  "He  that  loveth  father  or 
mother,  son  or  daughter,  more  than  me  is  not 
worthy  of  me."  Only  Christ  then  can  give  true 
freedom,  and  he  only  to  those  who  are  worthy 
of  him;  and  those  only  are  worthy  who  make  to 
him  a  complete  self-surrender,  according  to  him 
a  supremacy  in  heart  and  life  over  every  affec- 
tion and  aspiration  known  to  earth.  The  revela- 
tions made  by  the  science,  not  only  of  physics, 
but  of  metaphysics,  to  which  we  have  here  called 
attention,  enables  us  to  see  now  how  self  can  be 
set  free  by  an  absolute  surrender  of  self  to 
another,  provided  that  other  is  not  only  perfect 
man  but  man  in  closest  touch  with  a  loving  God, 
this  apparent  contradiction  proving  to  be  but 
apparent,  the  assertions  to  be  in  complete  accord^ 
betokening  a  most  intimate  acquaintance  with  the 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

deep  foundation  principles  on  which  this  world 
is  built. 

In  what  perfect  keeping  with  the  exigencies 
of  this  world-organism  is  the  fact  that  he  who 
assumes  to  be  its  very  central  heart  should  de- 
mand that  every  soul  be  in  this  threefold  attitude 
toward  him  of  implicit  obedience,  full  consecra- 
tion, and  devout  trust !  He  stands  alone  among 
all  the  leaders  of  mankind  in  the  sweeping  nature 
of  his  exactions.  No  radicalism  of  any  religious 
zealot  ever  equaled  this.  He  accepts  nothing  less 
than  an  unconditional  surrender  of  the  entire 
being,  with  all  its  loves  and  longings.  He 
recognizes  no  limitations  and  no  exemptions. 

His  rewards  are  as  unprecedented  as  his  de- 
mands. They  are  embodied  in  that  last  strange 
bequest  to  his  disciples  to  which  we  have  alluded, 
"My  peace  I  give  unto  you,  not  as  the  world 
giveth."  He  makes  no  promise  of  any  of  earth's 
prizes,  its  wealth,  or  ease,  or  power,  or  social 
preferment,  or  trumpeted  fame,  but  has  the  cour- 
age and  candor  to  disclose  to  them  that  poverty 
and  contumely,  scourgings  and  imprisonments, 
tortures  and  death  itself,  await  them;  that  he 
sends  them  forth  as  sheep  in  the  midst  of  wolves. 
Who  that  has  not  the  outlook  of  one  Divinely  in- 
formed would  hope  thus  to  disciple  a  world; 
would  demand  such  devotion  and  in  return  offer 
simply  an  inward  peace?  His  call  is  as  wide  as 
the  race,  and  lasting  as  the  soul's  eternal  years. 

If   we    believe    Christ    simply    a    man    without 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

being  in  some  unprecedented  way  intimately  linked 
with  and  transformed  by  the  Divine  Spirit  we 
can  but  regard  with  the  profoundest  amazement 
his  unparalleled  assurance,  but  if  thus  conjoined, 
then  in  the  revealing  light  of  the  science  of 
physics  and  of  metaphysics  we  can  perceive  how 
he  could  consistently  demand  nothing  less ;  that 
only  when  the  soul  is  brought  into  such  relation- 
ship with  himself  can  the  vast  plan  of  providence, 
which  has  been  unfolding  since  the  dawn  of  time, 
reach  final  consummation.  Do  you  ask  why  the 
obedience,  the  consecration,  and  the  trust  must 
be  so  absolute?  It  is,  as  I  have  attempted  to 
show,  this  very  feature  of  the  demand  which 
stamps  it  Divine.  Christ  has  in  his  own  history 
exemplified  the  very  spirit  he  enjoins,  not  only 
in  his  human  soul,  but  even  in  the  Divine  Spirit 
that  spoke  through  him  as  well — a  view  rarely 
understood,  still  more  rarely  entertained.  He 
requires  of  us  no  more  than  he  exacts  even  from 
his  higher  self.  It  is  a  very  common  error,  yet 
a  very  grave  one,  to  suppose  that  the  great 
foundation  principles  of  moral  obligation  had  no 
existence  until  God  created  and  established  them, 
that  his  acts  are  wholly  arbitrary,  that  he  is 
amenable  to  no  law,  but  is  and  always  has  been 
a  law  unto  himself.  It  seems  to  me  that  on  care- 
ful reflection  it  must  be  perceived  that  there  can 
be  no  moral  life  unless  there  exists  a  moral  law, 
a  fixed  standard  of  right  by  which  to  gauge  mo- 
tive and  test  character;  that  as  far  back  as  there 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

was  any  moral  quality  in  God's  acts  there  must 
have  been  this  fixed  standard  to  which  he  made 
his  acts  conform;  that  these  principles,  this 
standard,  must  have  been  coexistent  with  his  ever 
living  self;  that  the  Bible  in  its  moral  code  has 
simply  revealed  and  applied  to  the  various 
exigencies  of  the  complicate  inter-relationships 
of  human  life  these  self-existent  principles,  that 
these  principles  God  could  not  only  not  originate, 
but  not  even  change  in  the  slightest  degree;  that 
by  no  pronunciamento  of  his  can  loving  self- 
sacrifice,  chaste  desire,  dauntless  fidelity  to  in- 
ward conviction,  be  degraded  into  revolting  forms 
of  vice;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  can  cold,  selfish 
greed,  falsehood,  lust,  or  murderous  hate  be  ex- 
alted and  transformed  into  the  nobilities  and 
manly  virtues  of  the  soul ;  that  when  he  brought 
us  into  being  he  could  do  no  more  than  endow  us 
with  moral  discernment  and  with  perfect  freedom 
of  choice,  leaving  us  utterly  characterless,  and 
necessarily  so,  when  we  came  from  his  creative 
hand;  and  that  the  responsibility  of  the  nature 
of  our  future  moral  development  rests  wholly 
with  our  own  sovereign  selves,  according  as  we 
choose  to  place  our  lives  in  harmony  or  in  dis- 
cord with  these  eternal  principles  of  the  true  and 
the  good,  in  harmony  or  in  discord  with  this  all- 
reaching,  unchangeable  law  of  order  in  the  great 
world-organism  of  which  he  has  kindly  purposed 
that  we  shall  form  a  part. 

Availing  ourselves  thus  of  the  light  of  modern 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

science  in  our  attempted  explanation  of  the 
eternal  destiny  of  souls,  we  can  but  conclude, 
first,  that  whoever  stubbornly  rebels  against 
these  inexorable  systems  of  law  under  which 
every  one  is  necessarily  placed  at  the  very  birth 
of  being,  and  persists  in  that  rebellion,  which  he 
has  the  power  to  do ;  whoever,  in  other  words,  re- 
fuses to  hold  in  vitalizing  subjection  the  under 
forces  of  his  most  complicate  nature,  and  to  yield 
lovingly  to  the  vitalizing  influence  of  the  upper 
and  Divine,  will  under  these  very  laws  be  finally 
pushed  out  of  his  present  state  of  self-conscious 
being  and  lose  forever  his  gift  of  sovereignty. 
If  the  body,  the  intellect,  and  the  spirit  are,  as 
we  have  attempted  to  show,  not  only  organisms 
in  themselves,  but  parts  of  the  great  world-organ- 
ism, dissonance,  disorder  in  any  particular,  will, 
unless  arrested,  spread  confusion  throughout  the 
whole,  and  end  eventually  in  total  wreck. 

Science  thus  reveals  the  awful  fact  of  an  im- 
pending doom  of  utter  annihilation  of  self-con- 
sciousness and  sovereignty  to  every  incorrigible 
rebel  in  God's  realm,  for  the  very  exigencies  of 
the  case  demand  this,  the  very  fact  that  we  are 
organized  units,  and  as  such  are  composed  of 
complemental  parts,  having  an  intimate  interplay 
and  interdependence,  and  that  we  are  parts  of 
still  wider  organisms,  and  they  of  wider  still, 
until  the  bounds  of  the  human  race  are  reached, 
and  it  may  be  the  very  bounds  of  being,  as  the 
planets  and  solar  systems  and  sun  clusters  of  the 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  125 

universe  circle  at  last  orbit  within  orbit,  in  one 
vast  sweep,  in  grand  majestic  harmony  around 
God's  central  throne. 

We  witness  every  day  the  body  as  an  organism 
passing  under  the  doom  of  annihilation  through 
the  disintegrating  power  of  the  under  forces 
which  have  broken  away  from  the  control  of  the 
upper.  Faculty  after  faculty  of  the  intellect  we 
have  seen  disappear  through  violation  of  the  laws 
of  mind  until  finally  all  evidence  of  any  continued 
thought-life  ceases.  Science  has  furnished  a 
strong  presumption  at  least,  through  the  analo- 
gies of  Nature,  that  the  soul  also  is  organic,  and 
must  depend  for  continued  self-conscious  exist- 
ence on  the  harmonious  interplay  of  its  parts,  on 
the  maintenance  of  its  mastery  over  the  under 
forces,  and  its  implicit  and  ready  obedience  to  the 
upper.  There  are,  as  we  have  seen,  no  other  con- 
ditions of  liberty,  and  without  liberty  there  can 
be  no  perpetuity  of  any  organic  life.  It  is  now 
a  rapidly  growing  belief  among  Bible-students 
that  the  final  annihilation  of  conscious  selfhood, 
accompanied  with  sovereign  self-control,  of  the 
incorrigibly  wicked  is  revealed  in  God's  Word 
as  well  as  in  his  works.  Converts  to  this  creed 
are  now  numbered  by  tens  of  thousands  in  the 
Christian  churches.  I  was  surprised  to  find, 
when  my  attention  was  called  to  it,  how  all  the 
passages  bearing  on  this  subject  were  susceptible 
of  such  an  interpretation,  and  that  the  vast 
majority  of  them  fairly  excluded  any  other. 


126  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

The  symbols  used  are  symbols  of  destruction,  and 
not  of  eternal  torment.  It  is  said  that  the 
wicked  are  cast  out  where  the  worm  dieth  not, 
and  the  fire  is  not  quenched.  But  the  worm  and 
the  fire  are  instruments  of  annihilation  and  the 
obvious  meaning  is  that  their  work  will  go  on  un- 
interruptedly until  it  is  complete,  until  the  organ- 
isms on  which  they  are  delegated  to  feed  have 
been  utterly  consumed.  While  there  is  food  for 
the  worm  or  fuel  for  the  fire  they  will  gnaw  and 
burn;  but,  as  the  processes  of  destruction  are 
progressive,  that  on  which  they  prey  is  constantly 
diminishing,  and  unless  there  is  being  wrought  a 
perpetual  miracle  of  creation,  as  in  the  liver  of 
the  fabled-Prometheus  on  which  the  vulture  fed, 
an  end  must  surely  come.  This  figure,  and  in- 
deed all  other  figures  in  the  Sacred  Record  illus- 
trating the  final  condition  of  those  who  persist 
in  their  disobedience,  are  robbed  of  their  rhetori- 
cal force,  are  carried  wholly  out  of  their  natural 
meaning  unless  this  be  their  prophecy  of 
doom. 

I  would  not  be  understood  as  considering  it 
possible  for  a  human  spirit  to  be  banished,  even 
by  divine  power,  absolutely  out  of  all  being — be 
reduced  to  nothingness,  but  only  out  of  a  state 
of  organized,  sovereign,  self-conscious  being;  for 
scientists,  as  indeed  all  careful  thinkers,  while 
conceding  that  any  particular  form  of  existence 
may  be  made  to  permanently  pass  away,  regard 
it  as  axiomatic  that  an  entity  can  never  come  up 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  127 

out  of  nonentity,  nor  ever  be  returned  to  it. 
Many  entertain  the  belief,  born  of  hope  it  may 
be,  that  God  is  too  kind  and  sympathetic  to  suffer 
any  soul  to  be  lost.  Unquestionably  he  would 
rescue  every  one  had  he  the  power.  The  disin- 
tegration of  the  body  he  can  arrest  by  sheer  force 
of  will,  but  the  decay  of  the  moral  nature  is  the 
sad  consequence  of  the  exercise  of  a  will  as 
sovereign  as  his  own.  Without  its  consent  he 
cannot  stop  the  process  except  by  destroying  the 
life,  for,  as  I  have  said,  moral  life  is  made  up 
of  sovereign  acts  of  will.  Liberty  is  its  vital 
air.  God  can  compel  our  obedience,  but  so  soon 
as  compulsion  begins  responsibility  ends.  The 
soul  after  that  becomes  a  characterless  machine. 
Unless  divine  love  can  win  back  the  rebel,  his 
moral  life  must  gradually  die  out,  in  accordance 
with  spiritual  laws  which  it  is  not  in  the  compass 
of  even  God's  power  to  alter  or  annul.  Though 
God  cannot  stay  this  destructive  process  against 
our  will,  however  his  sympathetic  heart  may  be 
wrung  with  grief,  as  was  Christ's  when  he  wept 
over  favored  yet  fated  Jerusalem,  still,  while  there 
survives  the  faintest  spark  of  hope  of  the  soul's 
reclaim,  his  spirit  will  no  doubt  strive  with  all  its 
kindliest  influences.  I  cannot  see  why  the  mere 
fact  of  physical  death  should  be  a  signal  to  cease. 
Not  until  the  heart  has  grown  stony  in  sin,  not 
until  moral  death  has  come,  will  God's  hope 
perish,  and  his  pleading  Spirit,  with  all  its  loving 
patience,  be  finally  grieved  away.  Until  then  he 


128  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

will  stand  and  knock  at  the  door  of  the  human 
heart. 

Many  profound  scholars  now  affirm  that  it  is 
nowhere  revealed  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures  that 
the  body's  death  ends  the  soul's  probation. 
Surely  sound  philosophy  does  not  teach  it.  But 
that  probation  will  certainly  have  an  end  some- 
time— before  death  it  may  be  for  some  souls, 
after  death  for  others — the  immutable  laws  of 
spiritual  growth  and  decay  have  most  certainly 
decreed. 

Thus,  from  the  phenomena  and  principles 
which  the  researches  of  science  have  brought  to 
light,  we  are  irresistibly  led  to  the  conclusion 
that  in  some  far  future  all  discords  will  cease 
throughout  God's  universe ;  that  all  souls  which 
stoutly  stand  out  against  his  overtures  of  love, 
refuse  to  come  into  harmony  with  the  great  world- 
organism  of  which  they  were  purposed  to  form  a 
part,  withstand  the  spirtual  vitalizing  forces 
whose  mission  it  is  to  organize  all  things  into  a 
divine  order,  will,  through  this  perverse  persist- 
ence, be  finally  pushed  out  of  self-conscious,  moral 
being;  that  the  time  is  coming  when  that  notable 
prophecy  will  be  fulfilled  which  declares  that  be- 
fore Christ,  who  became  obedient  unto  death,  who 
is  the  perfect  embodiment  of  the  divine  order  and 
of  the  divine  love,  the  central  heart,  the  myste- 
rious vitalizing  power  of  this  vast  world-organism 
— that  before  this  Immanuel,  the  Mighty  Coun- 
selor, the  Prince  of  Peace,  in  that  great  day  when 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  129 

the  Divine  plans  shall  have  reached  their  final 
consummation,  all  knees  shall  bow  and  all  tongues 
confess. 


Two  thousand  years  ago  there  appeared  in 
Palestine  a  Jew  artisan.  He  lived  a  life  without 
a  flaw,  a  life  free  from  the  slightest  taint  of  self- 
ishness, marked  by  no  effort  to  secure  wealth  or 
ease,  political  or  social  preferment.  He  came  in- 
to the  closest  sympathetic  touch  with  the  poor, 
the  despised,  the  forsaken,  and  that  touch  was  to 
save.  There  was  no  interest  of  self  he  did  not 
sacrifice  with  noble  gladness  to  free  souls  from 
the  guilt  of  sin  and  the  power  of  it.  The  French 
skeptic  Renan  testifies  in  his  world-famed  Life  of 
Jesus :  "In  him  is  condensed  all  that  is  lofty  and 
good  in  our  nature.  .  .  .  Never  has  any 
man  made  the  interests  of  humanity  predominate 
in  his  life  over  the  littleness  of  inordinate  self- 
love  so  much  as  he.  Devoted  without  reserve  to 
his  idea,  he  sub-ordinated  everything  to  it  to  such 
a  degree  that  toward  the  end  of  his  life  the 
universe  no  longer  existed  for  him.  Whatever 
may  be  the  surprises  of  the  future,  Jesus  will 
never  be  surpassed.  His  worship  will  grow 
young  without  ceasing.  His  legend  will  call 
forth  tears  without  end;  his  sufferings  will  melt 
the  noblest  hearts;  all  ages  will  proclaim  that 
among  the  sons  of  men  there  is  none  born  greater 
than  Jesus." 

Though  his  youth  was  passed  amid  most  con- 


130  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

tracted  surroundings  in  a  despised  country  town, 
and  though  he  was  of  Jewish  parentage,  yet  he 
proved  himself  absolutely  free  from  the  prover- 
bial narrowness  and  the  petty  prejudices  of  his 
race.  His  sympathies  and  his  plans  of  reform 
were  as  wide  as  the  world.  In  the  three  short 
years  of  his  public  ministry  in  a  degenerate  and 
superstitious  age  this  young  mechanic  taught  a 
system  of  ethics  which  has  borne  the  test  of  the 
keenest  criticism  of  the  world  for  nineteen  cen> 
turies,  and  to-day  stands  abreast  of  the  world's 
best  thought,  quickens  it,  leads  it,  uplifts  it, 
glorifies  it  still.  The  present  advanced  forms  of 
civilization  are  the  outcome  of  the  leavening  in- 
fluences that  went  out  from  his  life  and  lips. 

He  spoke  in  bold,  uncompromising  denuncia- 
tion against  all  forms  of  sin,  however  intrenched 
behind  social  custom  or  church  sanction,  or  bol- 
stered up  by  wealth  or  power.  He  paid  the  for- 
feit for  his  fidelity  with  his  agonies  on  the  cross. 
His  utterances  and  his  conduct  were  pervaded 
with  an  unwonted,  awe-inspiring  spirit  of  com- 
mand. He  repeatedly  claimed  with  unperturbed 
assurance  that  he  was  Divine,  and  never  once 
weakened  with  a  single  word  of  retraction  when 
the  powerful  leaders  of  the  synagogue  confronted 
him  before  the  multitude  with  the  charge  of 
blasphemy,  but  simply  reasserted  his  claim  and 
calmly  pointed  to  the  proof.  It  is  a  remarkable 
fact  that  Christ  never  confessed  any  imperfection 
in  himself.  No  prophet  or  teacher  but  has 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  131 

frankly  granted  his  own  shortcomings.  The 
most  holy  are  the  most  sensitive  in  this  regard, 
most  self-accusing.  Christ  said  positively  that 
he  always  did  the  will  of  the  Father.  He  boldly 
challenged  his  enemies  to  convince  him  of  sin. 
Either  Christ  believed  himself  to  be  morally  per- 
fect, or  was  guilty  of  intolerable  presumption. 
He  asserted  of  himself  not  only  perfection,  but 
Divine  intimacy,  and  promised  that  eventually 
his  true  disciples  should  enter  into  as  intimate  re- 
lationship with  the  Father  and  be  as  completely 
transformed  by  the  power  of  love  and  be  raised 
at  last  to  as  high  a  spiritual  level  as  himself. 

In  his  person,  in  his  surroundings,  in  the  in- 
cidents and  spirit  of  his  ministry,  in  the  manner 
of  his  death,  he  fulfilled  with  startling  accuracy 
those  old  Messianic  prophecies  that  had  been 
handed  down  in  the  sacred  books  of  his  people. 
It  is  true  that  only  a  few  of  that  race,  which  has 
been  marvelously  preserved  till  this  hour,  notwith- 
standing it  lies  scattered  and  peeled  among  the 
nations,  have  ever  accepted  him  as  their  long- 
looked-for  deliverer,  for  it  was  a  spiritual,  and 
not  a  temporal,  kingdom  he  came  to  found;  it 
was  from  their  personal  sins,  and  not  from  the 
heavy  Roman  yoke,  he  sought  to  free  his  people, 
yet  they  have  watched  for  some  other  one  to  come 
while  nineteen  centuries  have  one  by  one  crept 
slowly  by,  and  watched  in  vain. 

In  the  facts  which  have  been  brought  to  light 
through  scientific  investigations  we  have  abun- 


132  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

dant  evidences,  as  I  have  attempted  to  show,  that 
the  human  race  is  of  sufficient  importance  to  war- 
rant just  such  a  divine  mission  as  Christ's,  and 
that  through  this  alone  can  that  vast  scheme  of 
life  succeed  on  whose  unfolding  through  the  un- 
told ages  God  has  already  lavished  such  wealth 
of  creative  thought. 

Christ  must  have  been  either  a  myth,  or  an  im- 
postor, or  a  lunatic,  or  else  have  been  in  some 
intimate  union  with  God  himself.  The  theory 
that  Christ  is  a  myth,  the  product  of  the  thought- 
accretions  of  some  reverent,  ignorantly  worship- 
ing period  of  antiquity,  a  demigod  like  Hercules, 
the  product  of  dim,  distorting  tradition — a 
theory  put  forth  by  the  Bauer  school  of  phi- 
losophy— has  long  since  been  abandoned  by  all 
historical  critics  of  any  standing  as  utterly  un- 
tenable. Weisacker  of  Tubingen  and  Harnack  of 
Berlin,  though  Bauer's  modern  successors,  are 
distinctively  not  his  disciples.  Listen  to  the  de- 
liberate judgment  of  one  of  the  most  pronounced 
and  keenest  skeptics  of  modern  times,  John 
Stuart  Mill:  "Whatever  else  may  be  taken  away 
from  us  by  rational  criticism,  Christ  is  still  left : 
a  unique  figure,  not  more  unlike  all  his  precursors 
than  all  his  followers,  even  those  who  had  the 
direct  benefit  of  his  personal  teaching.  It  is  of 
no  use  to  say  that  Christ  as  exhibited  in  the 
Gospels  is  not  historical,  and  that  we  know  not 
how  much  of  what  is  admirable  has  been  super- 
added  by  the  tradition  of  his  followers.  The 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  133 

tradition  of  followers  suffices  to  insert  any  num- 
ber of  marvels  and  may  have  inserted  all  the 
miracles  which  he  is  reputed  to  have  wrought. 
But  who  among  his  disciples,  or  among  their 
proselytes,  was  capable  of  inventing  the  sayings 
ascribed  to  Jesus  or  of  imagining  the  life  and 
character  revealed  in  the  Gospels?  Certainly 
not  the  fishermen  of  Galilee,  as  certainly  not  St. 
Paul,  whose  character  and  idiosyncrasies  were  of 
a  totally  different  sort;  still  less  the  early  Chris- 
tian writers,  in  whom  nothing  is  more  evident  than 
that  the  good  that  was  in  them  was  all  derived, 
as  they  always  professed  that  it  was  derived, 
from  a  higher  source." 

Napoleon,  imprisoned  on  the  rock  of  St. 
Helena,  when  conversing  as  was  his  habit,  about 
the  great  men  of  the  ancient  world,  and  compar- 
ing himself  with  them,  turned,  it  is  said,  to  Count 
Montholon  with  the  inquiry,  "Can  you  tell  me  who 
Jesus  Christ  was?"  The  question  was  declined, 
and  Napoleon  proceeded,  "Well,  then  I  will  tell 
you.  Alexander,  Caesar,  Charlemagne,  and  I 
myself  have  founded  great  empires,  but  upon 
what  did  these  great  creations  of  genius  depend? 
Upon  force.  Jesus  alone  founded  his  empire 
upon  love,  and  to  this  very  day  millions  would 
die  for  him.  I  think  I  understand  something  of 
human  nature,  and  I  tell  you  all  these  were  men, 
and  I  am  a  man.  None  else  is  like  him.  Jesus 
Christ  was  more  than  man.  Christ  alone  has  suc- 
ceeded in  so  raising  the  mind  of  man  towards 


134  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

the  unseen  that  it  becomes  insensible  to  the  bar- 
riers of  time  and  space.  Across  the  chasm  of 
eighteen  hundred  years  Jesus  Christ  makes  a  de- 
mand which  is  beyond  all  others  difficult  to  sat- 
isfy; he  asks  for  that  which  a  philosopher  may 
often  seek  in  vain  at  the  hands  of  his  friends,  or 
a  father  of  his  children,  or  a  bride  of  her  spouse, 
or  a  man  of  his  brother.  He  asks  for  the  human 
heart.  He  will  have  it  entirely  to  himself.  He 
demands  it  unconditionally,  and  forthwith  his  de- 
mand is  granted.  Wonderful!  In  defiance  of 
time  and  space  the  soul  of  man,  with  all  its  powers 
and  faculties,  becomes  an  annexation  to  the  em- 
pire of  Christ.  All  who  sincerely  believe  in  him 
experience  that  remarkable  supernatural  love  to- 
wards him.  The  phenomenon  is  unaccountable; 
it  is  altogether  beyond  the  scope  of  man's  crea- 
tive powers.  Time,  the  great  destroyer,  is  power- 
less to  extinguish  this  sacred  flame;  time  can 
neither  exhaust  its  strength,  nor  put  a  limit  to 
its  range.  This  is  it  which  strikes  me  most.  I 
have  often  thought  of  it.  This  is  it  which  proves 
to  me  quite  convincingly  the  Divinity  of  Jesus 
Christ." 

The  late  Goldwin  Smith  frankly  acknowledged 
that  "Christ's  personality  cannot  be  questioned. 
It  is  attested  by  the  Roman  historians  Tacitus 
and  Suetonius  (and  by  Pliny  as  well),  who  men- 
tion his  religious  leadership  and  crucifixion. 
"No  imagination  could  have  created  such  a  char- 
acter with  a  religious  and  ethical  system  to  cor- 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  135 

respond.  To  his  personal  influence  through 
nineteen  centuries,  and  devotion  still,  there  is  ab- 
solutely no  parallel  in  history — Before  them 
pales  the  glory  of  Sakyanouni  and  of  Mahomet." 
If  the  Gospel  narrative  is  a  work  of  fiction 
rather  than  a  statement  of  plain  fact  it  should  be 
regarded  as  the  "literary  miracle  of  the  ages." 
The  Christ-character,  if  the  product  of  an  un- 
inspired imagination,  stands  an  absolutely  un- 
rivaled masterpiece  of  creation,  clearly  beyond 
the  scope  even  of  the  genius  of  a  Shakespeare. 
Not  in  all  the  world's  literatures,  ancient  or 
modern,  is  there  a  record  of  such  a  sublime,  con- 
ceptual triumph,  a  fact  which  unmistakably 
evinces  that  it  lies  utterly  beyond  the  reach  of 
human  attainment,  and  yet  we  are  indebted  for 
the  record  left  us,  out  of  a  remote  antiquity,  of 
the  life  and  sayings  of  this  so  unique  a  person- 
age, chiefly  to  the  pens  of  plain,  common-place 
peasants,  of  meager  education,  of  ordinary 
mental  caliber,  of  no  literary  experience  or  apti- 
tude, of  no  exalted  ideals  of  life  and  morals. 
But,  so  convincing  is  the  verisimilitude  of  the  tale, 
mankind  has  long  since  ceased  to  deny  that  Christ 
actually  lived  the  life,  developed  the  character, 
made  the  claims,  taught  the  precepts,  died  the 
death,  and  finally,  as  crown  and  finish,  won  the 
signal  victory  over  the  very  grave  itself,  as  sub- 
stantially set  forth  in  the  Gospel  records.  What 
other  than  just  such  a  triumphal  ending  can  we 
possibly  imagine  would  have  been  at  all  in  con- 


136  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

sonance  with  such  a  claim  and  such  a  career? 
However,  if  we  once  but  concede  the  actual  fact 
of  his  resurrection  we  are  logically  compelled  to 
believe  that  in  some  way,  though  undefinable  and 
inconceivable  by  us,  his  human  spirit  was  cer- 
tainly and  most  intimately  linked  with  the  Divine. 
In  his  resurrection  Christ  manifested  a  power 
not  only  to  lay  down  his  life,  for  love's  sake,  but 
even  to  take  it  again,  and  if  we  feel  forced  by 
seemingly  irrefragable  evidence  to  accept  this 
final  crowning  miracle,  at  what  marvel  in  the 
record  need  our  faith  falter?  All  other  displays 
of  his  transcendency,  however  astounding,  for 
which  he  is  accredited,  are  but  natural  and  neces- 
sary concomitants  of  such  a  triumph.  None  of 
them,  surely,  are  out  of  keeping  with  his  mani- 
fested spirit  of  supreme  beneficence,  none  detract 
from  his  august  dignity,  none  are  out  of  har- 
mony with  the  purity  and  elevation  of  his 
thought,  while  all  are  inextricably  interwoven 
with  it. 

So  essential  is  it  for  us,  now  and  here,  to  note 
how  irrefragable  are  the  proofs  of  this  crowning 
act  in  Christ's  career,  evincing  his  supreme  Lord- 
ship over  life  and  death,  I  will  venture  to  enumer- 
ate them  as  briefly  as  may  be,  as  I  have  elsewhere 
made  mention  of  them  in  treatment  of  another 
theme. 

According  to  the  Gospel  record  Christ  after 
his  passion  convinced  his  disciples  that  he  was 
veritably  alive  by  many  infallible  proofs,  being 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  137 

seen  of  them  forty  days  and  speaking  of  the 
things  of  the  Kingdom;  one  hundred  and  twenty 
persons  witnessing  his  final  ascension.  Among 
the  infallible  proofs  were  their  meeting  him  face 
to  face,  and  holding  familiar  intercourse.  As 
they  had  been  on  most  intimate  terms  with  him 
for  years  and  had  become  thoroughly  familiarized 
with  the  tones  of  his  voice  and  his  general  appear- 
ance it  could  not  have  been  a  case  of  mistaken 
identity.  Having  frequently  and  most  unex- 
pectedly met  him  after  his  death  and  talked  with 
him  under  widely  varying  circumstances  they 
could  not  have  been  victims  of  any  hallucination, 
of  mistaking  for  his  presence  some  figment  of  an 
inflamed  fancy.  The  simple,  even  tenor  of  their 
lives,  and  the  calm,  unadorned  character  of  their 
writings  disprove  any  strain  in  them  of  wild 
fanaticism.  Their  frankly  confessed  ignominious 
desertion  of  him  in  his  last  most  trying  hours, 
shows  how  utterly  unexpected  was  his  reappear- 
ance in  their  midst. 

No  possible  inducement  can  be  imagined  for 
them  to  steal  his  body  and  falsely  proclaim  him 
risen  and  persist  in  such  a  fraud  by  a  continued 
public  preaching  based  on  its  verity,  for  they 
could  not  possibly  reap  any  personal  advantage 
in  thus  linking  themselves  with  a  condemned 
crucified  criminal,  but  would  be  placing  them- 
selves in  perpetual  peril.  There  is  nothing  to 
show  that  they  were  bold,  cunning  adventurers 
capable  by  natural  endowment  or  education  or 


138  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

social  standing  to  successfully  palm  off  such  a 
cheat  on  the  world;  but  everything  that  they, 
ordinary,  plain  people,  stood  ready  to  die,  if 
need  be,  in  attestation  of  their  belief. 

St.  Paul,  once  their  scoffing  persecutor,  wrote 
in  one  of  those  four  epistles,  whose  genuineness 
no  critics  dispute  and  which  together  constitute 
what  is  denominated  the  fifth  gospel,  twenty  years 
after  Christ's  death,  that  as  many  as  five  hundred 
brethren  at  one  time  had  seen  Christ  again  alive, 
the  greater  number  of  whom  were,  as  he  affirms, 
still  dwelling  in  the  midst  of  the  Corinthians  to 
whom  the  Epistles  were  addressed  and  who  were 
ready  to  vouch  for  the  fact.  How  easily  Paul 
could  have  been  confuted  and  put  to  open  shame 
had  this  not  been  true  and  notorious.  These 
early  disciples  imperiled  not  only  their  own  lives 
but  those  of  innocently  believing  multitudes  by 
this  their  uncompromising  advocacy  of  a  risen 
Christ.  No  hardships  or  perils,  nothing  but 
death  itself  seemed  capable  of  silencing  them. 
They  endured  to  the  end,  cheerfully  forfeiting 
everything  that  the  world  holds  dear,  evidently 
sustained  solely  by  an  inward  consciousness  of 
truth.  How  otherwise  are  we  to  explain  the 
transformation  afterward  wrought  in  these  fright- 
ened disciples,  so  deeply  disappointed  in  their 
hopes  of  the  coming  of  a  Messiah  to  break  the 
Roman  yoke,  from  most  ordinary,  plodding  peas- 
ants into  strenuous  advocates  of  a  system  of  eth- 
ics and  religious  faith  that  is  so  marvelously  free 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  139 

from  the  narrow,  shortsighted  Jewish  prejudices 
of  the  times,  of  such  broad  catholicity,  of  such 
sound  philosophy  that  the  peoples  on  this  planet 
in  all  their  nineteen  centuries  of  advancing  en- 
lightenment have  not  yet  outgrown  it;  how  other- 
wise are  we  to  explain  this  marvelous  transforma- 
tion except  on  the  ground  of  these  disciples  hav- 
ing come  into  actual,  constant  touch  throughout 
their  self-sacrificing  ministry  with  the  mind  and 
heart  of  their  risen  and  ever-living  Lord? 

No  wonder  that  when  the  listening  crowds,  as 
Luke  writes,  "saw  the  boldness  of  Peter  and  John, 
and  perceived  that  they  were  unlearned  and  ig- 
norant men  they  marveled  and  took  knowledge  of 
them  that  they  had  been  with  Jesus. 

The  famous  Dr.  Arnold  of  Rugby  testifies,  "I 
have  been  used  for  many  years  to  study  history 
and  examine  and  weigh  evidence,  and  I  know  of 
no  fact  which  has  been  proved  by  better  and  fuller 
evidence  than  that  Christ  died  and  rose  again 
from  the  dead." 

There  is  now  a  school  of  textual  critics  of  un- 
questioned acumen,  of  profound  learning,  who, 
after  almost  unprecedented  painstaking  research 
have  reached  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  sat- 
isfactory evidence  in  the  Scriptures  that  Christ's 
tomb  was  found  empty  on  Easter  morning  and 
that  his  crucified  body  was  raised  to  life,  but 
rather  that  it  was  his  spiritual  body  which  at 
sundry  times  had  been  seen  by  his  disciples. 
They  contend  that  Paul,  whose  earliest  epistles 


140  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

date  twenty-seven  years  after  Christ  died  and 
fifteen  before  the  Book  of  Mark,  the  earliest  of 
the  synoptical  gospels,  was  written,  testifies  sim- 
ply to  the  fact  of  sundry  apparitions.  In  his  ar- 
gument on  immortality  he  certainly  does  not  pre- 
dict a  resurrection  of  the  body  which  we  lay  away 
in  the  tomb.  "Thou  sowest  not  the  body  which 
shall  be."  "There  is  sown  a  natural  body;  there 
is  raised  a  spiritual  body."  Out  of  the  disinte- 
grating seed  there  springs  the  new  vegetation. 
The  continuity  lies  not  in  the  material  enswarth- 
ment  but  in  the  individualizing  vital  principle. 
The  fleshly  body  is  not  transformed,  but  out  of  it 
there  issues  the  original  germinal  life  rehoused  in 
a  wholly  new  and  radically  different  body,  built  up 
through  the  exercise  of  its  inherent  architectural 
powers. 

Present  psychologists  affirm  that  such  appari- 
tions as  those  of  Christ  are  not  isolated  phenom- 
ena, and  that  they  are  not  necessarily  non-veridi- 
cal, mere  hallucinations  of  subjective  origin, 
neither  that  they  are  instances  of  distant  tele- 
pathic control  over  the  senses  of  the  living  by  the 
spirits  of  the  dead,  but  that  the  dead  in  their  new 
spiritual  bodies  may  be  actually  present  and 
actually  seen,  the  veil  of  invisibility  being  tem- 
porarily drawn  aside.  The  disciples  evidently 
were  assured  that  they  actually  saw  again  their 
living  Lord.  On  this  certitude  the  apostles 
boldly  preached  the  word  and  built  the  church. 

There  is  no  fact  in  personal  experience  more 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  141 

universally  conceded  than  that  of  Saul's  conver- 
sion, and  that  it  was  based  on  his  firm  belief  in  the 
actuality  of  his  vision  of  Christ  while  on  the  road 
to  Damascus,  yet  he  clearly  implies  that  his  ex- 
perience and  that  of  the  other  former  witnesses 
were  precisely  alike, — they  and  he  seeing  pre- 
cisely the  same  sort  of  body.  These  critics  af- 
firm that  Mark's  story  of  the  empty  tomb  was 
but  a  record  of  an  oral  tradition  of  very  uncer- 
tain origin  and  of  a  quite  improbable  character, 
that  came  down  to  him  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
after  Peter  and  Paul  had  passed  away. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  follow  out  the  lines  of 
criticism  of  these  authors  in  which  they  essay  to 
show  the  fragmentary  character  of  Mark's  ac- 
count, the  interpolations  of  passages  in  the  other 
gospels,  the  discrepancy  of  texts,  the  strong  im- 
probability of  certain  recitals,  the  conflict  of  tes- 
timony, the  different  stages  of  growth  through 
which  what  are  apparent  myths  and  legends 
reached  their  final  form.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
while  they  discard  the  historical  verity  of  the 
resurrection  of  that  identical  body  of  Christ  which 
was  once  nailed  to  the  cross  and  afterward  laid 
in  the  tomb,  yet  the  essential  fact  of  his  spiritual 
resurrection  and  actual  reappearance  to  his  disci- 
ples again  and  again,  and  their  firm  conviction 
and  attestation  of  that  fact,  these  critics  do  not 
deny. 

That  Christ  in  some  way,  clothed  in  some  sort 
of  a  body,  made  his  actual  living  presence  known 


142  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

to  his  followers  and  thus  lifted  them  out  of  their 
despair  and  inspired  them  with  a  courage  and  a 
hope  that  afterward  knew  no  defeat,  they  seem 
willing  to  concede.  Whichever  interpretation  of 
the  closing  scenes  in  Christ's  career  may  be  true, 
a  belief  that  his  spirit  was  in  some  way  most  inti- 
mately conjoined  with  the  Divine,  and  that  ever 
since  that  day  it  has  entered  as  a  conquering  force 
for  good  into  the  world's  life  and  will  ultimately 
and  gloriously  triumph,  such  a  belief,  certainly 
a  most  priceless  possession,  is  happily  left  us  still. 
No  wonder  infidels  are  still  puzzled  to  explain 
how  unlearned  Galilean  fishermen  nineteen  hun- 
dred years  ago,  when  superstitions  and  most  con- 
tracted views  were  rife,  could  have  conceived  and 
pictured  with  their  pens  an  ideal  God-man  so 
masterfully  that  his  acts  and  sayings  as  recorded 
in  their  pages  should  be  found  and  universally 
acknowledged,  after  the  searching  test  of  so  many 
centuries,  to  be  in  perfect  accord  with  what  would 
be  expected  in  such  a  strange  and  august  person- 
age. To  fashion  such  a  hero,  a  hero  who  should 
in  every  exigency  maintain  the  decorum,  mani- 
fest the  spirit,  and  teach  with  the  wisdom  of  a 
God,  is,  as  I  have  before  remarked,  an  achieve- 
ment far  transcending  even  the  creative  genius  of 
a  Shakespeare.  Christ's  last  discourse  has  no 
parallel  in  all  literature.  Rosseau,  the  French 
sentimental  deist,  unhesitatingly  affirmed  that  the 
original  inventor  of  the  gospel  history  would  have 
been  as  miraculous  a  being  as  its  historical  sub- 


WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE?  143 

ject.  We  can  but  admire  the  wise  discretion  of 
the  writer  of  "Ben-Hur"  in  rigidly  adhering, 
whenever  he  introduced  Christ  into  his  story,  to 
the  severely  simple  outlines  given  in  the  Gospel 
histories.  He  seems  to  have  recognized  with  true 
artist  instinct  that  the  least  deviation  from  the 
grand  original  would  but  mar  his  work,  if  not 
ruin  it. 

As  to  Christ's  being  either  an  impostor  or  a 
lunatic,  there  is  no  infidel  who  has  proved  so  reck- 
less of  his  own  reputation  for  insight  or  for  can- 
dor as  to  venture  on  such  a  plea. 

There  is  but  one  other  answer  left  us  to  that 
great  question  of  the  hour,  "What  think  ye  of 
Christ?  whose  Son  is  he?"  That  answer  has 
fallen  from  the  lips  and  been  embodied  in  the  lives 
of  millions  of  nobly  trusting  souls  in  every  age 
since  Christ's  coming.  Faith  in  his  intimate 
union  with  the  Divine  Spirit  is  the  foremost  force 
in  the  world  to-day,  quickening,  uplifting,  and 
purifying  the  lives  of  its  mighty  multitudes  as  no 
other  force  has  done  or  ever  can  do.  The  spirit 
of  scientific  inquiry  is  now  abroad  in  the  earth  as 
never  before,  uncurtaining  the  past,  analyzing 
and  classifying  the  phenomena  of  inanimate  and 
animate  nature,  carrying  its  torch  far  into  the 
abysmal  depths  of  personality,  discovering  the 
laws  that  prevail  in  the  departments  both  of 
physics  and  of  metaphysics,  leaving  no  subject 
untested,  suffering  no  sacrifice  to  check  its  ar- 
dor. This  spirit  of  inquiry,  which  owes  its  im- 


144  WAS  CHRIST  DIVINE? 

petus  directly  or  indirectly  to  this  same  Christ  of 
history,  will,  as  I  confidently  believe  and  have  at- 
tempted to  show,  finally  establish  beyond  all  con- 
troversy that  this  Christ  is  indeed  that  Divine 
Deliverer  to  whose  advent  Nature  and  Revelation 
so  long  pointed  with  prophetic  fingers,  and  of 
whose  reign  of  love  we  have  the  blessed  assurance 
there  shall  be  no  end. 


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30 


.  23 


JAN   27 


" 


APR  1  6  1955 


APR  4     19?r 


11958 


LD  21-100m-8,'34 


YC  40815 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


